HE  NATURE 


CAP,  US 


r 


i 
<* 


THE 


NATURE  OF  THE  STATE 


DR.  PAUL  CARUS 


Aristotle,  Polit.  I,  I,  g. 


CHICAGO 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON 

KEGAM  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  Co.,  LTD. 
1904 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  Co, 
1894. 


PREFACE. 


THE  indictment  of  the  Homestead  rioters  for  treason,  in  1892, 
elicited  from  Gen.  M.  M.  Trumbull,  in  his  Current  Topics 
in  No.  269  of  The  Open  Court,  the  following  remarks  : 

"  The  prosecution  of  the  Homestead  laborers  for  treason  is  a 
"moral  victory  for  them.  They  may  now  exclaim  with  Patrick 
"Henry  '  If  this  be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it.'  It  throws  grave 
1 '  suspicions  on  the  cause  of  the  masters,  that  they  have  been  driven 
"  for  vindication  to  conjure  up  the  ghost  of  that  sanguinary  old 
' '  fantasy  known  as  '  treason ' ;  and  in  sarcastic  harmony  with  all 
"the  other  parts  of  the  serio-comic  play,  it  has  been  ordered  that 
"the  Homestead  men  shall  be  tried  by  a  ' king's  jury.'  Every  for- 
"ward  step  taken  by  social  and  political  civilisation  since  govern- 
"ments  began  was  an  act  of  treason  in  its  time  ;  and  there  never 
"  was  a  scarcity  of  judges  to  declare  it  so.  The  law  of  treason  has 
"  to  be  dug  out  of  mouldy  statutes,  and  the  antiquated  and  foolish 
"decisions  of  hired  courts.  A  great  newspaper,  complimenting 
' '  the  charge  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  Pennsylvania,  wherein  he  ex- 
' '  pounded  the  tory  law  of  treason,  says  :  '  It  is  essentially  the  ruling 
"of  the  judge  in  the  Chicago  anarchist  cases,  which  ruling  was  sus- 
"  tained  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois.'  The  compliment  is  de- 
"  served,  but  it  might  be  made  stronger  by  saying  also  that  it  was 
' '  essentially  the  ruling  of  Judge  Jeffries  at  the  trial  of  Alice  Lisle 
"when  that  'distinguished  jurist1  went  the  'bloody  circuit'  in  the 


2055043 


IV  PREFACE. 

"  West,  a  little  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago  ;  which  ruling,  by 
'  'a  happy  coincidence  '  was  sustained'  by  king  James  the  Second. 
"The  attainder  of  Alice  Lisle  was  reversed  in  the  next  generation, 
"as  the  American  attainders  of  this  generation  will  be  reversed  in 
"  due  time.  Alice  Lisle  was  put  to  death,  but  King  James  himself 
"was  driven  from  the  throne  a  few  years  afterward  for  tyranny, 
"which  according  to  Lord  Byron  is  'the  worst  of  treasons.'  And 
"  our  own  Lowell,  with  the  heroic  blood  of  historic  traitors  coursing 
"  through  his  veins,  and  inspiring  his  genius  as  he  wrote,  has  told 
"us  that  'The  traitor  to  humanity  is  the  traitor  most  accursed ; 
"man  is  more  than  constitutions.'  The  great  newspaper  aforesaid 
' '  insinuates  also  that  '  the  time  has  come  when  heroic  treatment  is 
1 '  necessary,  and  that  the  Homestead  affair  must  be  used  to  teach 
' '  disorderly  strikers  that  they  must  obey  the  laws. '  This  has  ever 
"been  the  cant  of  kings.  It  was  the  exhortation  of  Strafford  to 
"  King  Charles,  urging  him  to  that  career  of  tyranny  which  brought 
1 '  king  and  minister  to  the  block ;  although  instead  of  '  heroic, ' 
"Strafford  used  the  word  '  thorough.'  It  is  the  excuse  condemned 
"  by  grand  old  Milton,  himself  a  traitor,  where  he  says : 

" '  Necessity, 
"The  tyrant's  plea  excused  bis  devilish  deeds.'  " 

This  remark  evoked  the  following  editorial  comment,  published 
in  the  same  number  : 

"The  above  note  of  General  Trumbull  seems  to  us  to  call  for 
"special  editorial  comment.  Is  not  our  highly  esteemed  contribu- 
"  tor  here  carried  away  by  his  sympathy  for  one  party — viz.,  the 
1 '  strikers — and  thus  become  unjust  toward  the  other — the  State  ? 
"  His  glorification  of  treason  is  a  masterpiece  of  eloquence;  it  is 
"excellent  in  sentiment,  and  breathes  a  lofty  love  of  freedom,  but 
"it  seems  to  us  that  it  is  not  sound  in  logic,  and  so  will  not  stand. 

' '  The  impeachment  of  the  Homestead  strikers  for  treason  was 
"  made  in  the  name  of  the  State — of  the  same  State  whose  authority 
"was  inconsiderately  trampled  under  foot  by  the  strikers.  In  our 


PREFACE.  V 

"  American  society  where  the  State  as  a  rule  is  so  little  thought  of, 
"  so  often  ridiculed,  and  sometimes  even  despised,  it  is  praiseworthy 
"that  the  Chief  Justice  of  Pennsylvania  courageously  stands  up  for 
' '  the  dignity  of  the  State.  The  State  is  that  power  which  protects 
"peaceful  citizens  in  their  industrial  pursuits;  it  protects  also  our 
"liberal  institutions,  freedom  of  thought,  free  speech,  and  a  free 
"press.  Without  the  protection  of  our  liberties  we  could  not  fear- 
' '  lessly  publish  all  sides  of  a  question  as  we  actually  do. 

"What  is  treason  ?  Treason  is  that  crime  which  directly  at- 
"  tempts  to  undermine  the  existence  of  the  State. 

' '  While  it  is  true  that  all  ruling  classes  such  as  usurpers,  ty- 
"  rants,  monopolies,  aristocracies,  and  castes,  are  in  the  habit  of 
' '  branding  every  attempt  at  reform  or  progress  as  treason,  General 
' '  Trumbull  goes  too  far  in  speaking  of  treason  as  the  ghost  of  a 
"sanguinary  old  fantasy.  He  exalts  treason;  and  his  argument 
' '  makes  it  appear  as  if  real  felonious  treason  did  not  exist.  The  N^ 
"State  in  order  to  maintain  itself  must  defend  itself  against  treason. 
' '  The  State  that  suffers  treason  not  only  becomes  ridiculous  but 
"will  soon  terminate  its  existence. 

"What  would  become  of  society  if  General  Trumbull's  view 
"  should  prevail !  Guiteau  must  have  read  similar  encomiums  on 
"the  sublimity  of  treason.  With  General  Trumbull's  argument, 
"he  could  at  least  regard  his  impeachment  as  a  ' moral  victory.1 
' '  Being  condemned  for  felony  and  murder,  he  suffered,  in  his  own 
"opinion,  the  death  of  a  reformer  and  martyr.  It  was  more  piti- 
"able  than  grotesque  when  that  poor,  misguided  wretch  died  on 
"the  scaffold  with  the  shout  'Glory,  glory,  hallelujah!'  on  his 
"lips. 

"  The  Chicago  Anarchists  were  tried  for  murder  and  for  con- 
"  spiracy  to  murder,  a  crime  of  which  they  were  not  guilty,  at  least 
"of  which  they  were  not  proved  to  be  guilty.  They  should  have 
"been  tried  for  treason.  The  Open  Court  was  strongly  opposed  to 
' '  their  execution,  and  since  that  time  we  have  not  changed  our 
"opinion.  The  execution  of  the  convicted  anarchists  was  neither 


VI  PREFACE. 

"fair  nor  just  because  public  opinion  was,  during  the  trial,  too 
"much  excited  to  make  an  impartial  judgment  possible.  We  be- 
lieve that  in  the  case  of  anarchists,  as  in  all  similar  cases,  clem- 
' '  ency  should  be  used.  In  the  case  of  the  anarchists  we  must  not 
"forget  that  society  as  a  whole  was  not  without  grievous  faults; 
"society  not  only  tolerated  their  rampant  speeches,  but  whole 
"classes,  among  them  many  respectable  citizens  and  great  daily 
"newspapers,  approved  of  a  warfare  of  class  against  class,  with 
"dynamite  and  by  other  insidious  methods.  To  be  sure,  it  was  not 
"recommended  for  our  trouble  at  home,  but  it  was  encouraged  in 
' '  England  and  Ireland.  As  soon  as  the  evil  results  appeared,  the 
"severity  of  the  law  was  too  suddenly  resorted  to.  Nor  should  we 
' '  forget  that  the  anarchists  were  not  common  criminals,  but  were 
"misguided  idealists. 

"But  exactly  because  misguided  men  are  too  easily  carried 
"  away  and  led  to  commit  criminal  acts,  strikers  should  be  care- 
"  fully  informed  that  a  difference  exists  between  the  legitimate 
"aspiration  of  improving  their  condition  and  treason. 

"Lowell  is  right  when  saying  that  man  is  more  than  constitu- 
"  tions.  So  life  is  more  than  the  rules  of  health.  But  at  the  same 
"  time,  the  State  is  not  less  than  the  citizens  of  the  State.  A  State 
"is  a  real  and  indeed  a  superpersonal  being.  States  have  been 
1 '  preserved  and  must  be  preserved  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  many 
"  human  lives. 

"We  grant  that  that  State  is  the  best  which  allows  as  much 
"liberty  as  possible  to  its  citizens.  So  far  the  principle  of  indi- 
"  vidualism  is  quite  right.  The  highest  ideal  of  a  State  is  therefore 
"a  republic.  A  republic  is  a  State  in  which  all  the  citizens  are 
' '  sovereign  kings.  The  principle  of  individualism  that  pervades 
"  republican  institutions  is  good.  But  an  individualism  that  goes 
"  to  the  extent  of  abolishing  the  State,  that  pooh-poohs  its  authority 
"  and  threatens  its  very  existence,  throws  us  back  into  the  barbary 
"of  savage  lawlessness. 

"When  we  are  confronted  with  events  such  as  the  Homestead 


PREFACE.  Vll 

"trial,  we  demand  that  every  reason  for  clemency  be  heard  and 
1 '  respected  ;  let  us  also  make  ample  allowance  for  the  sentiments 
"of  the  men  implicated  in  the  affair.  They  cannot  be  regarded  as 
"common  criminals,  even  though  they  committed  criminal  offences. 
"Let  us  not  suppress  treason  by  committing  treason.  If  our  author- 
ities unrighteously  and  without  giving  due  allowance  to  those  in- 
' '  dieted  for  treason  condemn  them  through  the  instrumentality  of 
"packed  juries  or  other  lawyer  tricks,  they  become  guilty  of  op- 
1 '  pression  and  tyranny  ;  and  truly,  as  General  Trumbull  rightly 
"says,  quoting  from  Byron,  'Tyranny  is  the  worst  of  treasons.' 
11  But  on  the  other  hand  let  everybody  know  it,  and  let  everybody 
"mind  it,  that  employers  as  well  as  laborers,  the  companies  plotting 
"a  lockout  and  the  strikers  quitting  work,  in  short,  that  everybody 
"without  exception,  must  obey  the  laws,  and  that  the  State  will 
"not  and  cannot  suffer  its  authority  to  be  disregarded." 

A  number  of  letters  received  at  The  Open  Court  office  proved 
the  wide  interest  taken  in  this  subject,  and  several  of  them  were 
published  at  the  time  in  The  Open  Court's  columns  (Nos.  272,  275, 
279). 

The  following  essay  was  suggested  and  written  on  this  occa- 
sion, and  appeared  first  in  several  instalments  as  editorial  articles  in 
The  Open  Court  (Nos.  272,  334,  335,  336,  337).  It  appears  to  us  that 
a  correct  comprehension  of  the  nature  of  the  State  and  also  of  the 
nature  of  treason,  i.  e.,  of  the  attempt  to  subvert  the  existence  of  the 
State,  is  of  great  importance  in  a  republic.  The  occurrence  of  such 
crimes  against  society  as  were  recently  committed  by  dynamiters  in 
Barcelona  and  in  Paris,  and  also  the  efforts  of  strikers,  repeatedly 
manifested  in  this  country,  to  wreck  railroad-trains  conducted  by 
men  who  have  taken  their  places,  claim  our  attention  and  make  it 
desirable  to  spread  broadcast  a  sound  knowledge  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  State,  its  main  functions  and  purposej  among  all  classes 
of  society,  especially  among  those  who  for  some  reason  or  other 
find  it  advisable  to  struggle  and  strike  for  an  improvement  of  their 
condition. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


AFTER  all  the  State  does  exist.    Recent  events  in  Colo- 
rado illustrate  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

We  may  add  here  that  unions  and  corporations  of  any 
kind,  too,  are  realities.  They  constitute  organisations,  whose 
character  depends  upon  their  by-laws  and  above  all  upon 
the  purpose  which  they  pursue.  Such  combinations  of  in- 
dividuals into  super- individual  unities  are  called  "juridical 
persons"  because  they  are  possessed  of  certain  features, 
privileges  as  well  as  obligations,  which  otherwise  are  vested 
in  persons  only,  and  they  are  treated  like  persons  before  the 
law.  All  of  them  are  communities,  or  polities,  or  states  with 
constitutions  of  their  own,  but,  whatever  their  commercial 
or  ethical,  or  religious,  or  other  importance  may  be,  they 
must  (so  long  as  the  State  exists)  remain  subject  to  the 
laws  of  the  State,  for  the  State  alone,  the  personification  of  ; 
the  community  as  a  whole,  is  vested  with  sovereignty.  j 
Therefore,  those  corporations  which  defy  the  authority  of  the 
Government  will  naturally  and  inevitably  come  into  con- 
flict with  the  State. 

The  nature  of  the  State  and  also  of  corporations  has 
long  been  misunderstood,  but  our  political  experiences  are 
gradually  forcing  upon  us  a  correct  comprehension  of  the 
problem.  An  appreciation  of  the  significance  of  super- 
individual  existences  will  prove  valuable  not  only  to  the 
jurist  but  also  to  the  politician,  the  labor  leader,  the  busi- 
ness man,  and  every  citizen  interested  in  the  wellfare  of 
our  nation. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

LA  SALLE,  ILL.,  July,  1904. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Does  the  State  Exist  ? i 

Was  the  Individual  Prior  to  Society  ? 7 

The  State  a  Product  of  Natural  Growth 13 

The  Modern  State 27 

The  Authority  of  the  State  and  the  Right  to  Revolution     .     .  38 

The  Modern  State  Based  Upon  Revolution 47  / 

Treason  and  Reform 53 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 


DOES  THE  STATE  EXIST? 


OUR  artists,  in  portraying  the  various  nationalities 
of  the  world,  are  wont  to  embody  their  ideas  in 
lofty  figures,  whose  faces,  attitudes,  and  attire  express 
the  characteristic  features  of  the  peoples  represented. 
We  enjoy  these  works  of  art ;  and  in  forming  our  crit- 
ical estimates  of  the  designs  of  a  Columbia,  a  Ger- 
mania,  a  Gallia,  or  a  Britannia,  we  look  first  to  the 
truthfulness  of  the  emblematic  statue.  One  design  may 
represent  more  faithfully  than  another  the  peculiar  na- 
tional features. 

Now,  the  question  arises,  Is  not  this  method  of  art 
a  last  remnant  of  paganism,  which  must  give  way  to 
the  light  of  modern  conceptions?  We  are  told  by  some 
that  allegorical  figures,  like  the  gods  of  the  ancients, 
stand  for  something  unreal ;  they  are  chimeras  and 
should  have  no  place  in  a  brain  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. Others,  because  of  their  love  of  art,  shrink  from 
this  iconoclastic  method,  and,  while  denying  the  real 
existence  of  State-institutions,  nationalities,  and  other 
intangible  abstractions  allow  to  the  artist  what  they 


2  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

give  to  the  poet,  the  licence  of  telling  lies.  Art,  in  their 
opinion,  serves  no  practical  purpose,  but  is  simply  a 
useless  exercise  of  our  powers,  a  mere  play,  or  sport. 

Now,  we  cannot  accept  this  conception  of  art,  nor 
endorse  a  radical  denial  of  the  existence  of  nation- 
alities and  States.  The  purpose  of  art  is  not  to  tell 
lies,  but  to  teach  the  truth.  The  enjoyment  of  art  con- 
sists in  a  learning  without  effort ;  for  the  task  of  art  is 
to  impress  by  intuitional  revelations  the  various  truths 
of  life.  Genuine  art  may  be  unreal,  but  it  must  never 
be  untrue  ;  similarly,  the  allegorical  figures  of  nations, 
though  unreal,  must  be  true. 

The  tendency  of  the  times  is  toward  individualism, 
and,  indeed,  the  glory  of  our  institutions  is,  that  they 
have,  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history,  given,  in 
principle  at  least,  a  most  unbounded  sway  to  individual 
liberty.  And  rightly  so.  It  may  be  counted  as  a  na- 
tional characteristic  of  Americans  that  we  believe  in 
liberty,  in  individual  liberty,  and  it  almost  amounts  to 
treason  with  us  to  lose  confidence  in  the  feasibility  of 
free  institutions  and  in  the  inalienable  right  of  every 
one  of  us  to  liberty. 

True  it  is  that  this  theory  remains  too  much  mere 
theory.  Having  free  institutions  we  are  not  at  all  jeal- 
ous of  our  liberties.  We  allow  inroads  upon  our  rights 
to  be  made  almost  daily  and  do  not  object.  Even  our 
legislatures,  the  national  legislature  at  Washington  not 
excepted,  have  passed  bills,  which,  closely  considered, 
are  unconstitutional. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  3 

Individualism  being  recognised,  at  least  theoreti- 
cally, as  a  tendency  of  the  time,  its  principle  is  often 
misunderstood,  and  its  mistakes  carried  to  an  extreme. 
There  are  people  who  flatly  deny  the  existence  of  so- 
ciety, State,  nationality,  or  of  any  superindividual  en- 
tity. They  declare  that  the  individual  alone  exists : 
the  individual  is  a  reality ;  but  society,  the  nation,  the 
State,  are  mere  collective  terms  for  a  number  of  indi- 
viduals. If  this  be  so,  has  not  the  iconoclast  a  right 
to  break  the  idols  and  to  destroy  them,  be  they  ever  so 
beautiful  and  artistic  ? 

We  trust  that  we  can  prove  to  the  satisfaction  of 
every  unbiassed  individualist  that  the  allegorical  fig- 
ures representing  nationalities,  States,  cities,  or  other 
superpersonal  beings,  possess  a  meaning,  so  that  after 
all  they  are  not  the  senseless  vagaries  of  an  idle  imagi- 
nation. 

Several  years  ago  I  came  across  a  pamphlet  in  which 
the  author,  a  German-American  journalist,  holding  a 
prominent  position  on  the  greatest  German  newspaper 
of  New  York,  undertook  to  prove  that  nationality  does 
not  exist ;  for,  he  asked,  what  is  nationality?  Is  it  con- 
stituted by  the  territory  of  a  nation?  No,  for  there 
are  people  of  alien  nationality  living  in  the  territory  of 
every  nation.  Does  it  consist  of  blood-relationship? 
No,  for  immigrations  take  place  among  all  the  nations 
on  earth,  and  foreign  blood  is  constantly  infused  every- 
where. Is  perhaps  the  language  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  nationality?  No,  not  even  the  language  con- 


4  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

stitutes  nationality,  for  German  is  spoken  outside  of 
Germany,  and  English  outside  of  England ;  while 
there  are  many  subjects  of  the  English  and  German 
Empires  whose  vernacular  is  not  that  of  their  country. 
Ergo,  the  author  of  the  pamphlet  argues,  nationality 
does  not  exist,  and  a  nation  is  only  a  number  of  indi- 
viduals. 

These  arguments  are  plausible ;  and  yet  they  are 
obviously  superficial.  Suppose  a  chemist  wished  to 
know  what  a  clock  is,  and  began  his  inquiry  by  analys- 
ing the  substances  of  which  the  clock  consists.  He 
would  find  only  copper  and  iron  and  other  chemical 
elements,  but  no  clock.  Would  he  be  entitled  to  con- 
clude that  clocks  do  not  exist,  that  there  are  heaps  of 
brass  wheels  and  cogs,  but  no  clocks,  and  that  the 
mere  idea  of  a  clock  is  the  product  of  a  feverish  imag- 
ination? 

The  same  argument  which  disproves  the  existence 
of  the  State  and  of  other  superindividual  entities,  will 
serve  to  disprove  the  existence  of  the  individual.  For 
what  is  an  individual?  Does  an  individual  consist  of 
matter?  No,  certainly  not !  For  the  material  particles 
of  which  an  individual,  so-called,  consists  are  con- 
stantly changing.  Man's  body  is  in  a  constant  flux. 
Is  an  individual  constituted  by  the  titles,  possessions, 
and  rights  he  enjoys  ?  No,  he  is  not,  for  he  may  lose 
them  or  acquire  new  ones.  Well,  then,  is  perhaps  an 
individual  the  totality  of  his  ideas  and  aspirations  ? 
Even  the  ideas  and  aspirations  of  a  man  are  not  con- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  5 

stantly  the  same  ;  he  sometimes  forgets  or  neglects  the 
aspirations  which  in  past  years  were  very  powerful  in 
him,  and  he  will  in  the  future  most  probably  be  swayed 
by  new  ones  of  which  at  present  there  is  no  trace  in 
his  soul.  So  let  us  conclude  that  individuals  do  not 
exist,  and  that  the  assumption  of  individuals  is  a  mere 
illusion  ;  it  is  a  pet  superstition  of  the  day. 

These  arguments  are  just  as  valid  as  those  that 
prove  the  non-existence  of  the  State.  And  yet  facts 
speak  louder  than  syllogisms.  Whether  or  not  the 
existence  of  individuals  be  proved,  here  we  are,  real 
beings  ;  and  whether  or  not  we  deny  the  reality  of  the 
State,  here  we  live  in  the  actual  world  of  a  definite  re- 
lationship, called  the  United  States  of  America.  We 
receive  protection  in  our  industrial  pursuits  and  enjoy 
many  other  of  the  innumerable  benefits  of  public  or- 
der ;  they  are  all  very  real ;  and  he  who  is  blind  to 
their  reality  cannot  be  blind  to  our  paying  taxes,  which 
may  sometimes  be  out  of  proportion  to  our  estates  or 
unjustly  levied.  And  yet,  who  would  deny  the  reality  of 
the  State  as  a  tax-gathering  entity  ! 

The  point  is  this,  there  are  realities  which  do  not 
consist  of  matter  or  substance,  but  of  relations,  reali- 
ties which  are  not  concrete  objects.  These  relation- 
realities,  it  is  true,  do  not  exist  of  themselves,  hover- 
ing in  the  air  as  ghosts  or  demons,  like  the  gods 
of  pagan  mythology,  but,  for  all  that,  they  are  not 
nonentities.  There  are  no  souls  by  themselves ;  no 
metaphysical  ego-entities  behind  our  thoughts  and  as- 


6  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

pirations.  Nevertheless,  souls  exist.  My  soul  is  that 
peculiar  and  individual  combination  of  ideas  and  in- 
clinations of  which  what  I  call  "myself"  consists. 
Souls  and  also  nations  are  real  enough,  and  whether 
a  relation  is  geographical,  political,  or  otherwise,  is 
often  of  paramount  importance. 

The  relations  which  we  call  society,  nationality,  and 
State  are  not  mere  phantoms,  but  realities  for  the  pre- 
servation of  which  individuals  are  ready  to  fight,  to 
sacrifice  their  possessions  and  even  their  lives.  We 
admire  a  Cato  who  committed  suicide,  we  praise  the 
Cimbric  women  who  slaughtered  themselves  and  their 
own  children,  because  they  would  not  survive  that 
peculiar  kind  of  society  in  which  they  lived.  We  glorify 
the  death  of  every  hero  who  dies  for  his  country.  Shall 
we  say  that  it  is  a  mere  shadow  for  which  patriots  die, 
that  nationality,  the  institutions  of  a  nation,  and  the 
State,  are  superstitions  of  the  day,  and  that  they  have 
no  real  existence? 


WAS  THE   INDIVIDUAL   PRIOR  TO 
SOCIETY? 


A  LL  this  granted,  the  objection  has  been  made,  that 
•**•  the  State  and  society  in  general  are  after  all  only 
relations  among  individuals.  Individuals  were  first, 
and  society  is  a  contract  made  by  individuals.  Society, 
accordingly,  is  said  to  be  not  superindividual,  but  is 
represented  as  a  relation  subservient  to  the  wants  of  in- 
dividuals. The  individual  does  not  exist  for  the  sake 
of  the  State,  but  the  State  for  the  sake  of  the  individ- 
ual. 

The  question  whether  the  individual  or  society  was 
first,  reminds  one  of  the  parallel  question,  whether  the 
hen  or  the  egg  was  first.  And  the  answer  to  both 
questions  is,  Neither  was  first. 

The  hen-and-egg  problem  is  briefly  explained  thus  : 
First  was  living  substance  which  reacted  upon  the 
stimuli  of  its  surroundings  in  a  special  way.  And  the 
constant  repetition  of  these  reactions  produced  hab- 
its. Living  substance  is  not  only  intrinsically  immor- 
tal, but  it  also  grows.  Now  when  a  division  of  labor 


8  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

changed  growth  into  propagation,  individual  existence 
began,  introducing  at  once  birth  and  death,  and  con- 
fining the  work  of  propagation  to  a  certain  organ  pro- 
ducing germs.  Every  germ  contains  the  memories  of 
its  ancestral  lives  and  brings  in  the  course  of  its  de- 
velopment the  disposition  of  its  habits  into  being. 
Thus  the  germ  originates  simultaneously  with  the  in- 
dividual, and  the  egg  is  coeval  with  the  hen. 

Similarly,  the  individual  (viz.,  the  human  individual 
or  man)  was  as  little  before  society  as  society  was  be- 
fore the  individual.  All  those  features  which  make  of 
man  a  human  being  have  originated  solely  through 
social  intercourse,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  quite  proper 
to  say,  that  man  is  the  product  of  society.  There  is 
no  human  society  without  a  number  of  men  to  consti- 
tute it,  and  in  this  sense  again  it  is  proper  to  say  that 
society  is  constituted  by  individuals.  Yet  society  can 
be  constituted  by  a  number  of  individuals  only  if  in 
the  souls  of  the  individuals  are  impressed  those  marks 
of  social  intercourse  which  find  their  expression  in  a 
common  language,  common  interests,  and  common 
ideals. 

Sweep  your  soul  of  all  you  owe  to  society  and  what 
is  left  of  you — a  speechless  and  soulless  being,  a  brute. 
Further,  the  highest  aspirations  of  your  life  can  be 
realised  only  through  your  communion  with  human 
society.  How  blind  to  facts  are  those  who  deny  the 
actual  existence  of  society  with  all  that  it  implies  ! 

Eating  and  drinking,  or  enjoyments  of  any  kind, 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  9 

and  the  continuance  of  our  existence,  are  not  the 
highest  aims  of  life.  There  are  higher  aspirations,  the 
aims  of  which  are  of  a  more  subtle  nature  than  can  be 
analysed  by  the  gross  methods  of  a  hedonistic  phi- 
losophy. And  strange :  those  who  maintain  that  so- 
ciety exists  solely  for  the  sake  of  the  individual,  are 
generally  ready  to  deny  most  emphatically,  from  sheer 
antagonism  to  biblical  mythology,  that  the  earth  and 
what  grows  upon  it  have  been  created  for  the  benefit 
of  man ! 

When  investigating  the  question  of  purpose,  whether 
society  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  individual,  or  the  in- 
dividual for  the  sake  of  society,  we  must  not  forget  that 
we  are  here  dealing  with  a  self-made  puzzle.  When 
we  confront  a  relation,  we  can  neither  say  that  the  one 
part  of  it  exists  through  the  other  nor  the  other  through 
the  former  one.  The  relation  is  the  whole  and  its  parts 
are  mere  abstract  views,  which  as  such,  i.  e.,  as  parts  of 
the  relation,  do  not  independently  exist.  We  might 
as  well  say,  there  are  husbands  independent  of  wives, 
or  wives  independent  of  husbands.  This  is  obviously 
nonsensical,  because  the  relation  between  husband 
and  wife,  with  all  it  implies,  constitutes  what  we  call 
husbands  and  wives. 

Husbands  do  not  exist  for  the  sake  of  wives,  nor 
vice  versa  ;  but  the  marriage  relation  as  a  whole  has  a 
special  purpose. 

Thus  man  does  not  exist  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
being  a  representative  of  humanity.  Vice  versa,  human- 


10  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ity  (viz.,  all  those  features  which  have  been  developed 
through  social  intercourse  and  constitute  the  human 
in  man)  does  not  exist  simply  to  be  either  an  ornamen- 
tal or  useful  quality  of  a  certain  kind  of  two-legged  be- 
ing. But  both  exist  in,  with,  and  through  each  other. 
Humanity  would  be  an  empty  word  if  it  were  not  a 
living  reality  in  the  brains  of  individual  persons,  and 
men  would  not  exist  as  men,  as  human  beings,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  humanity  that  fills  their  souls  with 
noble  contents  and  ideal  aspirations.  But  if  we  take 
both  as  the  realities  which  they  represent,  humanity  is 
the  larger  and  higher  being,  for  it  comprises  the  indi- 
viduals. The  individuals  are  after  all  only  parts  of 
humanity,  and  humanity  is  a  superindividual  existence. 

A  nation,  it  is  true,  is  no  concrete  object,  no  con- 
stant and  unvarying  being.  But  closely  considered 
nothing  is  stable,  and  least  of  all  an  individual. 

That  which  we  call  a  rose-bush  is  a  rose-bush  still, 
even  though  some  branches  be  broken  off.  A  rose- 
bush seems  to  be  a  concrete  thing,  strictly  limited  and 
defined.  But  it  is  not.  It  is  a  thing  of  varying  qual- 
ities. The  name  which  is  attributed  to  it,  suggests  a 
constancy  and  permanency  that  is  foreign  to  its  nature. 
The  same  is  true  of  all  things.  The  whole  world  is  a 
tremendous  whirlpool  of  changes,  and  that  which  we 
call  objects  are  certain  eddies  or  waves  ;  they  are  units 
to  our  appearance,  but  limited  by  ill-defined  bounda- 
ries. There  is  no  object  in  the  world  which  as  such 
and  such  a  thing,  is  an  independent  existence  :  all  are 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  1 1 

parts  of  the  whole.  The  names  by  which  we  designate 
these  parts  include  innumerable  relations  to  the  whole 
and  without  these  relations  the  names  would  cease  to 
be  appropriate  for  the  things.  For  instance,  one  of 
the  qualities  of  a  chair  is  its  purpose  of  serving  as  a 
seat.  Suppose  this  purpose  to  be  absent  and  we  should 
no  longer  call  the  object  a  chair. 

Human  society  is  a  very  complex  organism,  and  all 
the  single  organs  through  which  it  manifests  its  exist- 
ence are  very  wonderful,  not  to  say  mysterious,  enti- 
ties, leading  a  life  of  supermaterial  reality,  each  one 
capable  of  development,  subject  to  decay  as  well  as  to 
higher  evolution.  Such  are  language,  religion,  histori- 
cal traditions,  customs  and  ceremonials,  moral  views* 
juridical  institutions,  political  ideals,  educational  sys- 
tems, economical,  military,  or  other  institutions.  The 
State,  however,  is  a  modern  offshoot  of  society  which 
has  established  itself  in  a  special  and  limited  territory, 
and  for  obvious  reasons  (mainly  to  prevent  arbitrary 
applications  of  the  principles  of  its  being)  has  codified 
the  most  important  of  its  relations  into  statutes  called 
laws. 

The  view  here  presented,  establishing  the  principle 
of  societism  as  an  actual  and  real  factor  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  mankind,  does  not,  be  it  well  understood,  abro- 
gate that  other  principle  which  is  called  individualism. 
On  the  contrary,  it  explains  it  and  complements  its 
maxim,  which  by  itself  is  one-sided,  untenable  as  a 
working  principle,  and  even  nonsensical.  Individual- 


12  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ism,  the  glory  of  our  republican  institutions,  is  not  a 
denial  of  societism,  but  its  counterpart.  Individualism 
maintains  that  society,  even  considered  as  a  society, 
will  prosper  best  where  the  factor  of  individualism  has 
full  play.  Let  all  the  places  in  a  society  be  open  to 
free  competition  and  let  there  be  elbow-room  for  all 
the  individuals,  so  that  everywhere  the  best  may  come 
to  the  front.  It  is  not  probable  that  an  increase  of 
comfort  or  of  individual  happiness  will  be  the  result  of 
the  full  application  of  this  principle  ;  hence  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  ruling  classes  to  individualism.  On  the 
contrary,  it  will  make  it  harder  for  him  that  has  an  easy 
lot  in  life,  to  maintain  it.  But  society  as  a  whole  will 
be  benefited,  and  mankind  will  progress  at  greater 
strides  than  ever  before. 


THE   STATE  A   PRODUCT  OF  NAT- 
URAL GROWTH. 


WE  HAVE  answered  the  question  "Does  the  State 
exist?"  in  the  affirmative;  for  the  social  relations 
between  man  and  man  are  actual  and  important  reali- 
ties. How  a  number  of  citizens  are  interrelated,  whether 
in  the  form  of  a  patriarchical  community,  or  of  a  mon- 
archy or  of  a  republic,  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  in- 
difference ;  these  interrelations  are  real ;  and  they  are 
a  vital  factor  in  the  concatenation  of  causes  and  effects. 
They  may  be  compared  to  the  groupings  of  atoms  and 
molecules  in  chemical  combinations.  The  very  same 
atoms  grouped  in  two  different  ways  often  exhibit 
radically  different  phenomena ;  so  that  we  naturally 
incline  to  believe  that  we  are  dealing  in  such  cases 
with  different  chemical  substances.  In  like  manner,  the 
same  race  of  men  will  exhibit  different  national  charac- 
teristics if  combined  under  different  systems  of  society 
and  State-organisation. 

But  there  are  other  problems  connected  with  the 
idea  of  the  reality  of  social  relations.     The  questions 


14  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

arise  :  What  is  a  State?  What  difference  obtains  be- 
tween society  and  State?  And,  granted  that  society 
has  a  right  of  existence,  is  not  perhaps  the  State  a  ty- 
rannical institution  which  must  be  abolished  ? 

State  is  obviously  a  narrower  concept  than  society. 
The  State  is  a  special  form  of  social  relations.  Society 
is  the  genus  and  State  is  a  particular  species.  Social 
relations  are  first,  and  out  of  them  States  develop. 
States  are  more  fixed  than  the  primitive  social  condi- 
tions from  which  they  come. 

As  animals  of  definite  kinds  are  more  stable  in  their 
character  than  the  amosboid  substance  from  which  they 
have  taken  their  common  origin,  so  States  are  a  further 
step  forward  in  the  evolution  from  primitive  social  rela- 
tions. This  is  the  reason  why  the  absence  of  State- 
institutions  is  commonly  regarded  by  anthropologists 
and  historians  as  a  symptom  of  extraordinary  imma- 
turity in  a  people.  And  justly  so,  for  no  civilised  na- 
tion exists  whose  citizens  are  not  united  by  the  social 
bonds  of  State-life,  and  only  the  lowest  savages  are 
without  any  form  of  State-institutions. 

The  State  has  frequently  been  called  an  artificial 
institution  while  primitive  society  is  supposed  to  be 
the  natural  condition  of  mankind.  In  this  sense  Rous- 
seau regarded  all  culture  and  civilisation  as  unnatural. 
This  view  is  ridiculous  and  absurd.  All  progress  on 
this  supposition  would  have  to  be  branded  as  an  aber- 
ration from  nature.  We  think  that  on  the  contrary 
every  advance  in  evolution  denotes  a  higher  kind  of 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  15 

nature  ;  man's  progress  is  based  upon  a  clearer  com- 
prehension of  nature  and  consists  in  his  better  adapta- 
tion to  surrounding  conditions.  Thus  these  nature- 
philosophers  in  their  efforts  to  be  natural,  reverse  the 
course  of  nature  and  become  unnatural  in  the  highest 
degree.  The  State  is  as  little  artificial  (i.  e.  unnatural) 
in  comparison  with  the  so-called  natural  condition  of 
savage  life,  as  the  upright  gait  of  man  can  be  said  to 
be  artificial  as  contrasted  with  the  walk  of  quadrupeds. 
The  State  is  of  natural  growth  not  less  than  the  other 
institutions  of  civilised  society.  We  might  as  well  de- 
cry (as  actually  has  been  done)  the  invention  of  writing 
and  the  use  of  the  alphabet  as  unnatural. 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  State? 

The  State  briefly  defined  is  "the  organisation  of 
the  common  will  of  a  people." 

The  common  will  of  the  people  may  be  poorly,  dis- 
proportionately, or  even  unjustly  represented  in  the 
State-organisation.  It  is  a  frequent  occurrence  that 
large  classes  do  not  assert  their  will,  either  because 
they  do  not  care  to  assert  it  or  because  they  are  too 
timid  to  do  so,  so  that  the  State  is  little  influenced  by 
them.  But  that  is  another  question.  In  defining  the 
nature  of  the  State,  we  do  not  say  that  all  states  are 
perfect,  nor  do  we  defend  the  evils  of  their  inferiority. 

Every  horde  of  wild  animals  possesses  certain  com- 
mon interests,  for  it  is  these  very  interests  which  make 
them  a  horde.  A  horde  of  talking  animals,  however, 
will  soon  become  aware  of  their  common  interests. 


1 6  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

They  will,  in  discussing  the  problems  of  their  tribal 
life,  more  and  more  clearly  understand  the  situation 
and  regulate  the  means  of  attending  to  the  common 
interests  according  to  their  best  experience.  Com- 
mon interests  create  a  common  will,  and  as  soon  as 
this  common  will  becomes  consciously  organised  by 
habits,  traditions,  and  the  ordinances  of  those  who  have 
the  power  to  enforce  them,  by  written  or  unwritten 
laws,  by  acts  of  legislatures,  or  similar  means,  the  prim- 
itive social  life  enters  a  higher  phase  of  its  evolution : 
it  changes  into  a  State. 

The  State-relations  do  not  cover  all  the  social  rela- 
tions of  a  people,  but  only  those  which  are  created  or 
animated  by  their  common  will.  All  the  other  rela- 
tions among  the  single  citizens  of  a  State,  that  is  those 
which  are  of  a  private  nature,  stand  only  indirectly  in 
connexion  with  the  State-relations. 

The  State  is  not  constituted  by  laws  and  institu- 
tions alone  ;  the  State  is  based  upon  a  certain  attitude 
of  the  minds  of  its  members.  The  existence  of  a  State 
presupposes  in  the  souls  of  its  citizens  the  presence  of 
certain  common  ideas  concerning  that  which  is  to  be 
considered  as  right  and  proper.  If  these  ideas  were 
absent,  the  State  could  not  exist. 

That  our  life  and  property  in  general  is  safe,  that 
we  buy  and  sell,  marry  and  are  given  in  marriage,  that 
the  laws  are  observed,  and  that  in  ordinary  circum- 
stances we  hold  intercourse  with  one  another  mutually 
trusting  in  our  honest  intentions  ;  that,  also,  we  strug- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  IJ 

gle  and  compete  with  one  another  and  try  our  best  to 
maintain  our  places  in  the  universal  aspiration  on- 
ward : — all  this  is  only  possible  because  we  are  parts 
of  the  same  humanity  and  the  children  of  the  same 
epoch,  possessing  the  same  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  bearing  within  ourselves  in  a  certain  sense  the 
same  souls. 

Could  some  evil  spirit,  over  night,  change  our  souls 
into  those  of  savages  and  cannibals,  or  even  into  those 
of  the  robber-knights  of  the  Middle  Ages,  all  our  sacred 
laws,  all  our  constables,  all  the  police-power  of  the 
State  would  be  of  no  avail :  we  should  inevitably  sink 
back  to  the  state  of  civilisation  in  which  those  people 
existed.  But  could  a  God  ennoble  our  souls,  so  that 
the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  would  become  still  more 
purified  in  every  heart,  then  better  conditions  would  re- 
sult spontaneously  and  much  misery  and  error  would 
vanish  from  the  earth.  And  the  God  that  can  accom- 
plish that,  lives  indeed — not  beyond  the  clouds,  but 
here  on  earth,  in  the  heart  of  every  man  and  woman. 

It  is  the  same  power  that  has  carried  us  to  the  state 
of  things  in  which  we  now  are  ;  it  is  the  principle  of 
evolution,  it  is  the  aspiration  onward,  the  spirit  of  pro- 
gress and  advancement. 

The  State  is  based  upon  certain  moral  ideas  of  its 
members  ;  and  State-institutions,  such  as  schools,  laws, 
and  religious  sentiments,  exist  mainly  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  and  strengthening  the  moral  ideas  of  the 
present  and  future  generations. 


l8  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

We  do  not  intend  to  discuss  here  the  evolution  of 
the  State.  Nor  do  we  propose  to  estimate  the  moral 
worth  of  its  present  phase.  The  ideals  of  the  various 
existing  States  are  just  emerging  from  a  barbarous 
world-conception,  and  we  are  working  out  a  nobler  and 
better  future.  Should  this  better  future  be  realised, 
let  us  hope  that  our  posterity  will  still  feel  the  need 
of  future  progress  as  much  as  we  do  now.  We  simply 
wish  to  elucidate  the  nature  of  the  State  so  as  to  under- 
stand the  purpose  and  the  laws  of  its  evolution. 

The  objects  upon  which  the  common  will  of  a  peo- 
ple is  directed  are,  (i)  protection  against  enemies, 

(2)  the  administration  of  justice  among  its  members, 

(3)  the  regulation  of  common  internal  affairs ;  which 
last  point,  in  higher  developed  States,  consists  of  two 
distinct  functions,  (a)  of  establishing  the  maxims  ac- 
cording to  which  the  commonwealth  is  to  be  adminis- 
tered, and  (3)  of  executing  these  maxims  and  enforcing 
them. 

The  need  of  protection  against  foreign  enemies  has 
created  our  armies  and  navies,  which,  in  their  present 
form,  are  quite  a  modern  invention.  That  powerful 
State-communities  were  not  satisfied  with  defending 
themselves,  but  frequently  became  aggressive,  either 
for  the  sake  of  a  more  effective  defence  or  from  a  pure 
desire  of  aggrandisement,  is  a  fact  which  has  nothing 
to  do  with  our  present  subject.  Warfare  is  the  main, 
but  not  the  sole,  external  function  of  the  State.  It  has 
been  supplemented  in  modern  and  more  peaceful  times 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  ig 

by  commercial  treaties  and  other  international  adjust- 
ments. 

The  internal  functions  of  the  modern  State  are  per- 
formed by  the  judiciary,  by  the  legislative  bodies,  and 
by  the  executive  government.  All  these  organs  of  the 
State  have  become  what  they  are  in  quite  a  natural 
course  of  evolutionary  growth  simply  by  performing 
their  functions,  like  the  organs  of  animal  bodies. 

A  certain  want  calls  for  a  certain  function,  and  the 
performance  of  this  function  develops  the  organ. 

The  State  has  been  compared  to  an  organism,  and 
this  comparison  is  quite  admissible,  within  certain 
limits. 

True  enough  that  the  historical  growth  of  our  mod- 
ern States  is  within  reach  of  our  historical  tradition, 
and  we  know  very  well  that  one  most  important  factor 
of  this  growth  has  been  the  conscious  aspiration  of  in- 
dividuals after  their  ideals — a  factor  which  is  either 
entirely  absent  from  or  only  latent  in  the  development 
of  organs  in  animal  organisms.  The  assumption  that 
the  cells  of  the  muscles,  the  liver,  or  the  kidneys,  are 
conscious  of  the  work  they  perform,  that  they  have 
notions  of  duty  and  ideals,  is  fantastical.  Moreover, 
there  is  no  need  of  resorting  to  this  explanation,  since 
the  theory  that  function  develops  organs,  together  with 
the  principles  of  selection  and  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  sufficiently  accounts,  if  not  for  all  problems 
connected  therewith,  yet  certainly  for  the  problem  of 
their  existence  in  general. 


2O  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

As  a  factor  in  the  development  of  States  the  con- 
scious aspiration  of  individuals  for  their  ideals  even, 
in  practical  lifej  cannot  be  estimated  high  enough ;  for 
this  factor  has  grown  in  prominence  with  the  progress 
of  the  race,  and  it  is  growing  still.  In  the  explanation 
of  the  origin  of  States,  however,  this  very  factor  can 
most  easily  be  overrated,  and  it  has  been  overrated,  in 
so  far  as  some  savants  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
great  age  of  individualism,  have  proposed  the  now  ob- 
solete view  that  States  are  and  can  be  produced  only 
by  a  conscious  agreement  among  individuals,  which, 
however,  they  grant,  may  be  tacitly  made.  And  this 
theory  found  its  classical  representation  in  Rousseau's 
book,  "Le  contract  social,"  in  which  the  existence  of 
the  State  is  justified  as  a  social  contract.  This  is  an 
error:  States  develop  unconsciously  and  even  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  individuals ;  and  it  is  a  frequent 
occurrence  that  the  aspirations  of  political  or  other 
leaders  do  not  correspond  with  the  wants  of  their 
times.  Thus  it  so  often  happens  that  they  build  better 
than  they  know,  because  they  are  the  instruments  of 
nature.  The  growth  of  States  is  as  little  produced  by 
conscious  efforts  as  the  growth  of  our  bodies.  Conscious 
efforts  are  a  factor  in  the  growth  of  States,  but  they 
do  not  create  States. 

A  State  grows  solely  because  of  the  need  for  its  ex- 
istence. Certain  social  functions  must  be  attended  to  ; 
they  are  attended  to,  and  thus  the  State  is  created  as 
the  organ  of  attending  to  them. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  21 

Conscious  aspirations,  although  they  do  not  build 
States,  are  indispensable  for  properly  directing  the 
State-creating  instincts  of  a  social  body.  In  like  man- 
ner, an  intelligent  observation  of  hygienic  rules  is  not 
the  creative  faculty  that  produces  the  growth  of  organs, 
but  it  is  an  indispensable  condition  keeping  the  organs 
in  good  health.  The  more  clearly  the  common  wants 
of  a  nation  are  recognised,  the  better  will  be  the  meth- 
ods devised  to  satisfy  them.  The  more  correctly  the 
nature  of  society  and  of  its  aims  is  understood,  the 
more  continuous  will  be  the  advance  of  civilisation. 

The  social  instincts  which  have  created  the  State, 
the  love  of  country,  and  of  the  country's  institutions  and 
traditions,  are  so  deeply  ingrained  in  individuals  that 
in  times  of  need  they  come  to  the  surface,  (sometimes 
timely,  sometimes  untimely,)  even  in  spite  of  contrary 
theories.  Let  the  honor  of  a  country  be  attacked  and 
you  will  see  that  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  from  their  individualistic  point  of  view  deny 
the  very  right  of  existence  to  our  national  institutions, 
will  clamor  for  war. 

When,  on  the  i4th  of  July,  1870,  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia was  officially  and  ostentatiously  affronted  by  the 
French  ambassador,  Benedetti,  the  most  peaceful  citi- 
zens of  Germany  were  ready  to  make  the  greatest  sac- 
rifices in  resentment  of  Napoleon's  insolence,  and  the 
democratic  party  dwindled  away  in  the  general  excite- 
ment. The  effect  in  France  was  similar ;  the  King's 
refusal  to  receive  the  French  plenipotentiary  was  so 


22  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

generally  resented,  that  the  Emperor's  opposition,  al- 
though very  strong  before,  disappeared  at  once  in  the 
almost  unanimous  cry  for  vengeance. 

The  social  instincts,  and  among  them  the  State- 
forming  instincts,  are  much  stronger  and  more  deep- 
seated  than  most  of  us  are  aware  of.  They  do  not  on 
every  occasion  rise  into  consciousness,  but  slumber 
in  our  hearts,  and  even  in  the  hearts  of  our  anarchists 
and  individualists  j  these  instincts  form  part  of  our  un- 
conscious selves  and  will  assert  their  presence,  if  need 
be,  even  in  spite  of  our  theoretical  selves,  which  are 
only  superficially  imposed  upon  our  souls. 

* 
*  * 

It  may  be  objected  that  sometimes  States  have  been 
artificially  established  with  conscious  deliberation  by 
mutual  agreements  which  were  fixed  in  laws.  This  is 
quite  true :  conscious  efforts  are  made  and  have  to  be 
made  to  give  a  solid  shape  to  a  State.  The  Constitu- 
tions of  the  United  States,  of  Belgium,  and  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire  are  instances  of  this. 

Conscious  efforts  indeed  serve  and  should  serve 
to  regulate  the  growth  of  States  ;  they  determine  the 
direction  of  its  advance,  and  bring  conflicting  princi- 
ples into  agreement.  Thus  struggles  are  avoided,  and 
questions  which  otherwise  would  be  decided  by  the 
sword,  are  settled  in  verbal  quarrels,  more  peacefully, 
quicker,  and  without  loss  of  life. 

When  the  fathers  of  our  country  came  together  to 
form  a  bond  of  union,  they  did  not  create  the  nation 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  23 

as  a  federal  union,  or,  so  to  say,  as  a  State  of  States, 
they  simply  regulated  its  growth  and  helped  it  into 
being  by  giving  obstetrical  assistance.  The  union 
agreed  upon  by  the  representatives  of  the  thirteen  col- 
onies was  not,  however,  the  product  of  an  arbitrary  de- 
cision, but  the  net  outcome  of  several  co-operating  fac- 
tors, among  which  two  are  predominant :  (i)  the  ideas 
which  then  lived  in  the  minds  of  the  people  as  actual 
realities,  and  the  practical  wants  which,  in  the  common 
interest  of  the  colonies,  demanded  a  stronger  unity 
and  definite  regulations  as  to  the  methods  of  this  unity. 
The  representatives  themselves  were  not  mentally  clear 
concerning  the  plan  of  the  building  of  which  they 
laid  the  foundation.  The  political  leaders  of  the  time 
(perhaps  with  the  sole  exception  of  Hamilton,  who, 
on  the  other  hand,  fell  into  the  opposite  mistake  of 
believing  that  a  State  ought  to  be  a  monarchy)  were 
anxious  to  make  the  union  as  loose  as  possible,  for 
they  were  imbued  with  the  individualistic  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  So  they  introduced  (and  certainly 
not  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  union  !)  as  many  and  as 
strong  bulwarks  as  possible  for  the  protection  of  the  so- 
called  inalienable  rights  and  liberties  of  individuals. 
The  United  States  developed,  and  developed  necessa- 
rily, into  a  strong  empire,  although  its  founders  were 
actually  afraid  of  creating  a  really  strong  union. 

In  those  times  it  was  thought  that  a  State-admin- 
istration could  be  strong  only  through  the  weakness  of 
its  citizens.  Weakness  of  government  was  regarded  as 


24  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

the  safest  palladium  of  civic  liberties.  We  now  know 
that  a  powerful  administration  is  quite  reconcilable  with 
civic  liberty.  In  fact,  experience  shows  that  weak  gov- 
ernments, more  than  strong  governments,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  self-preservation,  resort  and  cannot  help  resort- 
ing to  interference  with  the  personal  rights  of  its  citi- 
zens. 

The  Belgians,  after  having  overthrown  the  Dutch 
government,  shaped  a  new  State  exactly  in  agreement 
with  the  ideas  they  held.  If  they  had  not  previously 
possessed  social  instincts  and  lived  in  State-relations, 
they  would  not  have  been  able  to  form  a  new  State  so 
quickly. 

The  idea  of  a  united  Germany  developed  very 
slowly;  it  was  matured  in  times  of  tribulation  and 
gradually  became  quite  a  powerful  factor  in  Germany's 
national  life.  The  foundation  of  the  Empire  would  re- 
main unexplained,  were  we  only  referred  to  the  debates 
of  the  Reichstag  and  the  resolutions  finally  adopted. 
The  resolutions  drawn  up  after  a  longer  or  shorter  de- 
liberation form  only  the  last  link  in  a  very  long  process 
of  concatenations.  Yet  these  last  conscious  efforts, 
although  of  paramount  importance,  presuppose  already 
the  conditions  for  the  constitution  of  the  Empire  in  its 
main  features. 

The  existence  of  Empires  and  States  does  not  rest 
upon  the  final  resolutions  passed  at  the  time  of  their 
foundation,  but  upon  the  common  will  of  the  people, 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  25 

which,  such  as  it  is,  has  been  shaped  in  the  history  of 
national  experiences. 

The  United  States  developed  in  spite  of  the  indi- 
vidualistic clauses  of  its  founders ;  and  in  the  same  way 
Luther,  the  prophet  of  religious  individualism,  advo- 
cated principles,  the  further  evolution  of  which  in  such 
minds  as  Lessing  and  Kant,  he  from  his  narrow  stand- 
point would  never  have  consented  to.  He  was  the  har- 
binger of  a  new  epoch,  but  he  was  still  the  son  of  the 
old  theories.  Like  Moses,  Luther  led  the  way  to  the 
promised  land,  but  he  never  trod  upon  its  ground. 
His  actions,  more  than  his  ideas,  were  the  reformatory 
agents  of  his  life,  and  we  may  well  say  now  that  he 
himself  little  appreciated  the  principles  that  underlay 
his  reformatory  and  historical  actions. 

The  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  espe- 
cially Rousseau  and  Kant,  recognise  the  State  only  in 
its  negative  rights.  The  State,  according  to  their  prin- 
ciples, is  a  presumption,  and  its  existence  is  only 
defensible  as  protecting  the  liberties  of  its  members. 
The  rights  of  the  State  are  supposed  to  be  negative. 
The  liberty  of  each  member  of  a  society  is  limited  by 
the  equal  amount  of  liberty  of  all  the  other  members, 
and  the  State's  duty  is  to  protect  their  liberties.  If 
this  principle  were  the  true  basis  of  the  State's  right 
to  existence,  the  State  would  not  be  justified  in  levying 
taxes  or  in  passing  laws  which  enforce  any  such  regu- 
lations as  military  or  juror's  service.  Appropriations  for 
the  public  weal  would  be  illegal,  and  all  executive  of- 


26  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ficers  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  a  band  of  usurpers. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  States  have  constantly  exercised 
their  positive  rights,  interfering  greatly  with  the  liber- 
ties of  their  citizens.  They  have  taxed  them,  they 
have  passed  and  enforced  laws.  And  the  State  could 
not  exist  without  having  this  authority.  The  State  is 
actually  a  superindividual  power  and  has  to  be  such 
in  order  to  exist  at  all. 


THE  MODERN  STATE. 


THE  State-ideal  of  classic  antiquity  (expressed  in 
Plato's  books  "On  the  State"  and  "On  Laws"; 
in  Aristotle's  "Politics,"  and  in  Cicero's  fragmentary 
essay  "On  the  State")  exhibits,  alongside  of  a  rev- 
erence for  the  State,  a  disregard  for  the  weal  of  its 
citizens.  The  mediaeval  conception,  mainly  repre- 
sented by  Thomas  Aquinas's  work,  "De  Rebus  Publi- 
cis  et  Principum  Institutione,"  and  also  by  Dante's 
"  De  Monarchia,"  founds  the  State  upon  the  theolog- 
ical thesis  that  the  government's  authority  is  a  divine 
institution  :  the  last  great  representation  of  this  view, 
in  a  modernised  form,  is  Stahl's  "  Philosophy  of  Law." 
Against  the  oppressions  which  were  sanctioned  by  a 
wrong  enforcement  of  the  absolute  authority  of  the 
State  arose  another  conception,  which  may  be  called 
the  State-ideal  of  individualism.  The  individualistic 
conception  represents  the  State  as  a  social  contract. 
Its  most  important  advocates  are  Hobbes,  Locke,  Gro- 
tius,  Puffendorf,  Montesquieu,  and  Rousseau. 

It  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  it  is  possible  to 


28  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

realise  a  truly  individualistic  State,  for  the  most  thor- 
oughgoing individualists  deny  all  the  essential  rights 
of  States  and  will  consistently  have  to  accept  anar- 
chism. The  individualistic  principle,  nevertheless,  in- 
troduces a  new  element  which  constitutes  the  very 
nerve  of  the  modern  State-ideal. 

While  recognising  the  authority  of  the  State  to 
make  laws,  (and  no  law  is  a  law  unless  it  is,  when  not 
willingly  obeyed,  enforced,)  we  do  not  advocate  the 
old  view  of  the  State  which  splits  the  nation  into  two 
discrete  parts,  the  government  and  its  subjects,  the 
rulers  and  the  ruled.  The  modern  State-ideal  differs 
from  the  old  conception.  It  knows  no  rulers,  but 
only  administrators  of  the  common  will.  The  mod- 
ern State-ideal  knows  no  sovereign  kings,  emperors, 
or  presidents ;  it  knows  only  servants  of  the  State. 
And  this  ideal  of  the  modern  State  was  (strangely 
enough  !)  propounded  and  partly  practised  for  the  first 
time  by  a  monarch  on  the  continent  of  Europe  at  a  time 
when  monarchs  were  still  recognised  as  possessing 
absolute  power.  This  innovator  is  Frederick  the 
Great,  author  of  the  famous  book  "Antimachiavelli," 
who,  although  born  to  a  throne,  was  conscious  of  the 
duties  of  the  throne  and  scorned  the  arrogant  preten- 
sions of  the  sovereigns  of  his  time  whose  poor  ethical 
maxim  had  been  condensed  by  the  French  king,  Louis 
XIV,  into  the  famous  sentence,  L'etat,  c'est  moi! 

Frederick  wrote  to  the  young  King  Charles  Eugene 
of  Wurtemberg  (1744)  : 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  29 

"  Do  not  think  that  the  country  of  Wiirtemberg  is  made  for 
your  sake,  but  the  reverse ;  providence  has  made  you  in  order  to 
make  your  people  happy.  You  must  always  prefer  its  welfare  to 
your  pleasure." 

In  the  "  Memoir  of  Brandenburg,"  1748,  he  wrote : 

"A  prince  is  the  first  servant  and  the  first  magistrate  of  the 
State,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  give  account  to  the  State  for  the  use  he 
makes  of  the  public  taxes." 

The  same  idea  is  inculcated  in  his  last  will  (written 
1769): 

"  I  recommend  to  all  my  kin  to  live  in  good  concord,  and  if  it 
need  be  to  sacrifice  their  personal  interests  to  the  weal  of  the  coun- 
try and  to  the  advantage  of  the  State. " 

Frederick's  idea  does  away  with  the  personal  sov- 
ereignty of  rulers  and  makes  the  State  itself  sovereign  ; 
it  abolishes  rulers  as  such  and  changes  them  into  ad- 
ministrators of  a  nation's  public  interests  and  into  com- 
missioned executors  of  the  common  will. 

If  this  is  true  of  monarchies,  it  is  still  more  true  of 
republics.  The  President  of  the  United  States  is  not 
the  temporary  sovereign,  but  the  first  servant  of  the 
nation,  commissioned  to  attend  to  certain  more  or  less 
well-defined  duties. 

The  modern  State-ideal  has  been  matured  by  the 
individualistic  tendencies  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  reason  is  obvious  :  The  modern  State-ideal  imposes 
the  same  obligations  upon  rulers  as  upon  subjects,  and 
elevates  accordingly  the  dignity  of  the  subject.  It 
makes  all  alike  subject  to  duty,  thus  recognising  law 


30  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

simply  as  an  expression  of  the  superhuman  world- 
order.  Yet,  although  the  modern  State  adopts  the 
principle  of  individualism  by  recognising  the  inaliena- 
bility, as  it  has  been  styled,  of  certain  rights  of  its  citi- 
zens, we  cannot  say  that  individualistic  philosophers 
have  succeeded  in  establishing  a  tenable  philosophy 
of  law  or  in  shaping  the  true  State-ideal  either  of  their 

own  times  or  of  the  future. 

* 
*  * 

Rousseau,  in  his  book  "  Le  contract  social,"  makes 
a  very  keen  distinction  between  the  will  of  all  and  the 
common  will,  saying  that  the  former  is  dependent  upon 
private  interests,  while  the  latter  looks  to  the  common 
weal.  The  former  is  only  "the  sum  of  the  individual 
wills."  If  Rousseau  had  consistently  applied  this  dis- 
tinction to  his  theories,  his  favorite  error  of  the  social 
contract  would  have  been  seriously  endangered. 

The  common  will  is  the  product  of  social  life,  it  is 
the  will  of  establishing  the  solid  foundations  of  peace- 
able interrelations  among  the  members  of  a  commun- 
ity, and  this  will  can  originate  even  though  all  single 
individuals  may  attempt  to  escape  from  its  enactments. 
There  being  the  stern  necessity  of  social  bonds  un- 
der penalty  of  destruction  to  the  whole  community, 
the  common  will  develops  as  a  most  powerful  moral 
feature  in  every  single  member  of  the  tribe  as  a  kind  of 
tribal  conscience  demanding  universal  obedience  to 
certain  general  rules  or  laws.  All  the  citizens  of  a  com- 
munity may  agree  in  this,  that  everybody  regards  him- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  31 

self  as  exempt.  Such  a  state  of  affairs  would  make  a 
State  very  unruly  without,  however,  necessarily  anni- 
hilating the  common  will  and  therewith  the  State  it- 
self. For,  we  repeat,  the  common  will  is  different  from 
the  sum  total  of  all  wills ;  and  the  enactments  of  the 
common  will  might  on  the  contrary  be,  and  usually  are, 
in  such  anarchical  conditions,  only  the  more  severely 
enforced.  The  more  the  execution  of  the  common  will 
is  assured,  the  more  leniency  is  possible  ;  the  more  pre- 
carious its  existence,  the  more  relentless,  ruthless,  and 
cruel  have  been  its  enactments. 

* 
*  * 

The  individualistic  philosophy  always  had  trouble 
in  accounting  for  such  facts  as  States  and  other  super- 
individual  institutions.  In  explaining  them  they  always 
fall  back  upon  individuals,  as  if  the  individual  mem- 
bers of  human  society  had  first  existed  singly  as  human 
beings  and  had  created  their  language,  laws,  religions, 
or  any  other  interrelations  by  mutual  consent,  by  a 
tacit  contract,  Seasi  not  cpvffsi,  by  designing  artificial 
plans  and  not  in  the  course  of  a  natural  growth.  Thus 
Mr.  Spencer,  a  chief  representative  of  individualism, 
explains  the  evolutionary  origin  of  institutions,  cus- 
toms, religious  dogmas,  etc.,  as  follows: 

"  The  will  of  the  victorious  chief,  of  the  strongest,  was  the 
rule  of  all  conduct.  When  he  passed  judgment  on  private  quarrels 
his  decisions  were  the  origin  of  law.  The  mingled  respect  and  ter- 
ror inspired  by  his  person,  and  his  peerless  qualities,  then  deemed 
supernatural  by  the  rude  minds  that  had  scarcely  an  idea  of  the 


32  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

powers  and  limits  of  human  nature,  were  the  origin  of  religion,  and 
his  opinions  were  the  first  dogmas.  The  signs  of  obedience,  by 
which  the  vanquished  whom  he  spared  repaid  his  mercy,  were  the 
first  examples  of  those  marks  of  respect  that  are  now  called  good 
manners  and  forms  of  courtesy.  The  care  he  took  of  his  person, 
his  vestments,  his  arms,  became  models  for  compulsory  imitation ; 
such  was  the  origin  of  fashion.  From  this  fourfold  source  are  de- 
rived all  the  institutions  which  have  so  long  flourished  among  civil- 
ised races,  and  which  prevail  yet."  * 

This  shows  a  palpable  misconception  of  the  real 
problem.  In  some  of  these  primitive  States  and  tribal 
principalities  a  chief  rules  supreme  and  commands, 
in  certain  affairs,  absolute  obedience.  We  say  "in 
some,"  not  "in  all"  of  these  States,  for  the  savage 
States  are  as  different  among  themselves  as  are  the 
States  of  civilised  mankind.  There  are  perhaps  as 
many  democracies  in  darkest  Africa  as  absolute  mon- 
archies. Mr.  Spencer's  view  of  the  origin  of  religion, 
ceremonies,  and  fashions,  is  not  correct.  For  although 
a  chief  may  be  omnipotent  as  a  commander  in  war,  he 
will  be  unable  to  bring  about  a  change  of  the  religious 
ideas  of  his  subjects.  A  chief's  power  is  not  the  creator 
of  the  common  will  in  a  tribe  which  makes  institutions, 
religion,  ceremonies,  and  fashions,  but  the  reverse,  his 
power  as  a  chief  is  its  product.  The  members  of  the 
tribe  obey  him,  because  the  common  will  enacts  obe- 
dience. Mr.  Spencer,  accordingly,  puts  the  car  before 
the  horse.  He  is  blind  to  the  real  problem.  Instead 
of  explaining  the  authority  of  the  chief  from  the  com- 

*  Quoted  from  Outline  of  the  Evolution-Philosophy. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  33 

mon  will  organised  in  a  primitive  State-institution,  he 
explains  the  existence  of  the  State-institution  by  the 
authority  of  the  chief. 

Individualism  ought  not  to  be  made  a  theory  of  ex- 
planation, for  it  is  utterly  incorrect  and  explains  noth- 
ing. But  while  it  is  a  wrong  theory  it  is  nevertheless 
a  correct  principle  ;  it  stands  for  the  rights  of  all  indi- 
viduals and  demands  the  recognition  of  their  dignity. 
As  a  principle  it  is  a  factor,  and  indeed  a  most  impor- 
tant one  in  social  life.  But  it  is  not  its  sole  principle, 
and  we  fall  into  confusion  when  we  use  it  as  an  ex- 
planation of  the  intricate  phenomena  of  the  develop- 
ment of  society  and  of  the  State. 

The  modern  State-ideal,  viz.,  the  individualistic 
State-conception  preserves  the  truth  of  the  ancient  and 
mediaeval  conceptions,  but  together  with  them  it  em- 
bodies the  principle  of  individualism.  It  limits  the 
State  authority  by  the  moral  purpose  imposed  upon 
State-administrations,  but  in  doing  so,  it  raises  it  upon 

a  higher  level  and  sanctifies  its  existence. 

# 
*  * 

There  is  a  notion  prevalent  concerning  republics, 
that  they  can  replace  the  royal  government  of  monar- 
chies only  by  a  government  of  majorities.  It  is  true 
that  most  republics,  including  our  own  country,  are 
sometimes  actually  ruled  by  a  majority.  If,  however, 
the  State  is  to  be  the  organisation  of  the  common  will, 
we  see  at  once  that  a  majority  rule  cannot  as  yet  be  the 
highest  ideal  of  a  State.  Majorities  can  only  be  called 


34  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

upon  to  decide  certain  questions  of  expediency,  they 
have  no  right,  either  to  tamper  with  the  inalienable 
rights  of  citizens,  or  to  twist  the  moral  maxims  upon 
which  the  State  institution  has  been  raised,  so  as  to  suit 
their  temporary  convenience,  or  even  to  pass  laws  that 
stand  in  contradiction  to  them.  Laws  passed  by  the 
majority  may  be  regarded  as  the  legislative  body's 
present  interpretation  of  the  moral  laws  that  underlie, 
like  a  divine  sanction,  the  existence  of  the  State ;  but 
upon  him  who  is  convinced  that  the  laws  are  immoral, 
the  duty  devolves  to  use  all  legal  means  in  his  power 
to  have  them  repealed. 

The  most  important  legal  means  of  abolishing  im- 
moral or  unjust  laws  is  agitation,  so  that  the/r0  and 
con  of  a  question  can  be  openly  discussed.  Says  Mil- 
ton: 

"Whoever  knew  Truth  put  to  the  worse  in  a  free  and  open 
encounter  ? " 

Freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom 
of  person  are  the  corner-stones  of  free  institutions. 
They  are  sacred  rights  which  no  majority  government 
should  dare  to  touch.  The  State  has  a  right  to  levy 
taxes,  provided  they  are  justly  proportioned  and  do 
not  greatly  exceed  its  necessary  expenses.  The  State 
is  also  entitled  to  demand  of  its  citizens  the  perfor- 
mance of  a  citizen's  duties,  which  in  times  of  need 
may  grow  into  extraordinary  sacrifices.  For  in  cases 
of  war  we  must  be  willing  to  offer  even  our  lives  for 
the  welfare  of  the  country.  But  the  State  has  no  right 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  35 

to  pass  laws  in  favor  of  certain  classes,  or  to  create 
monopolies,  or  to  prescribe  a  peculiar  kind  of  religious 
worship. 

There  are  some  questions  in  life,  and  also  in  the 
political  life  of  nations,  in  which  it  is  less  important 
how  they  are  decided,  than  that  they  be  decided. 
Whether  a  travelling  party  shall  take  the  seven  o'clock 
train  or  the  eight  o'clock  train  is  perhaps  quite  imma- 
terial, the  only  requirement  being  that  either  the  one 
or  the  other  hour  be  decided  upon,  so  that  arrangements 
can  be  made  that  all  may  leave  together.  Such  ques- 
tions as  whether  a  public  enterprise  should  be  aided 
with  one  million  dollars,  or  with  two,  or  not  at  all ; 
whether,  for  coast-defence,  ten  or  twelve  men-of-war 
should  be  built,  etc.,  etc.,  are  best  decided  by  majority 
votes.  They  become  actually  right  by  being  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  majority.  Real  moral  questions,  however, 
are  of  a  different  nature.  They  are  right  or  wrong, 
independently  of  majorities. 

No  majority  vote,  not  even  the  consensus  of  all, 
can  make  a  wrong  law  right.  The  majority  can  enforce 
bad  laws,  and  put  them  into  practice,  but  it  can  jus- 
tify them  as  little  as  a  ukase  of  the  Czar.  Even  the 
formal  legality  of  immoral  laws  may  be  doubted ;  for, 
even  though  it  be  the  expression  of  the  will  of  all,  it 
may  not  be  an  expression  of  the  common  will,  and  we 
have  learned  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the 
two,  and  the  authority  of  the  State  is  founded  upon 
the  latter,  not  the  former. 


36  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

We  do  not  intend  to  discuss  problems  of  casuistry 
with  reference  to  the  practical  politics  of  to-day,  but 
we  indicate  that  here  is  a  field  for  it.  There  may  be 
immoral  laws  which  it  is  our  duty  to  resist,  and  there 
are  other  immoral  laws  which  it  is  our  duty  to  suffer. 
Unequivocal  questions  of  right  or  wrong  are  right  or 
wrong  eo  ipso,  but  under  special  circumstances  it  be- 
comes needful  to  have  them  formulated  as  laws  by  the 
legislative  bodies,  so  that  they  shall  bear  upon  them 
the  stamp  of  legality  and  no  wrong  construction  of 
them  shall  affect  the  order  of  the  State.  Doubtful 
questions  of  right  or  wrong,  however,  must  be  decided  ; 
as  long  as  they  are  doubtful,  they  can  only  be  decided 
provisionally,  and  we  have  as  yet  in  republics  as  in 
monarchies  no  other  means  of  deciding  them  than  by 
a  majority  vote  of  the  legal  authorities.  A  wrong  deci- 
sion does  not  make  wrong  right,  it  only  enforces  it ;  but 
so  long  as  we  have  no  better  means  of  testing  right  and 
wrong  we  must  employ  the  insufficient  method  we 
have ;  we  have  to  count  votes,  instead  of  weighing 
them. 

The  system  of  deciding  questions  by  a  majority 
vote  is  a  mere  expediency,  we  grant ;  but  it  is  the  only 
method  of  settling  doubtful  questions  that  must  be 
settled,  one  way  or  another ;  and  in  certain  public 
affairs  it  is  better  that  such  questions  be  wrongly  set- 
tled, than  not  settled  at  all.  We  grant  still  more  ;  we 
grant  that  this  method  does  not  prevent  the  passage  of 
bad  laws,  and  it  may  be  very  difficult  to  draw  the  line, 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  37 

where,  for  the  sake  of  public  peace,  they  should  be 
obeyed,  and  where  they  should  be  met  with  resistance. 
This  concession,  however,  is  by  no  means  an  indictment 
of  republican  institutions  and  their  methods  ;  for  the 
same  objection  must  be  made  against  the  laws  of  mon- 
archies ;  and  in  this  respect  monarchical  State  institu- 
tions have  sinned  in  no  less  degree  than  republics. 
Monarchies  have  not  only  made  the  very  same  mis- 
takes that  republican  authorities  have  made,  but  many 
additional  ones,  which  will  remain,  as  we  hope,  a  pe- 
culiar feature  of  monarchies. 


THE  AUTHORITY  OF  THE  STATE 

AND  THE  RIGHT  TO 

REVOLUTION. 


existence  of  a  common  will  in  a  tribe  is  a  fact, 
and  the  existence  of  the  State,  as  the  consciously 
organised  common  will  of  a  certain  society,  is  also  a 
fact.  The  question,  however,  arises,  Is  this  power  a 
usurpation?  Is  it  not  perhaps  an  unjustifiable  and 
odious  tyranny?  And  if  it  is  to  be  recognised  as  a 
legitimate  power,  on  what  authority  does  it  rest  ? 

The  old  explanation  of  State  authority  is  the  Tory 
explanation,  that  royalty  exists  by  the  grace  of  God. 
The  latest  and  perhaps  (in  Protestant  countries,  at 
least)  the  last  defender  of  the  Tory  system  was  Fried- 
rich  Julius  Stahl  (born  in  1802  of  Jewish  parentage,  bap- 
tised in  1819,  called  to  the  University  of  Berlin  in  1843 
by  the  King  of  Prussia,  Frederick  William  IV.,  be- 
came the  leader  of  the  ultra-conservative  party  1848- 
1861,  the  year  of  his  death ;  his  main  work  was  "  Die 
Philosophic  des  Rechts,"  3  vol.) 

Stahl's  criticism  of  the  old  jus  naturale  is  poor;  his 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  39 

Jewish-Christian  conceptions  of  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion prevented  him  from  seeing  the  truth,  which  in 
spite  of  some  errors  was  contained  in  that  idea  of  clas- 
sic antiquity.  His  famous  demand  of  "Die  Umkehr 
der  Wissenschaft,"  (viz.,  that  science  should  return)  is 
a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  reveals  himself  in 
the  progress  of  science.  Rejecting  the  view  of  the 
ancients  concerning  the  authority  of  the  State,  he 
founded  it  upon  God's  ordinance.  The  State,  accord- 
ing to  Stahl,  is  Gottes  Weltordnung ;  it  is  a  human  in- 
stitution founded  upon  divine  authority ;  it  is  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  moral  empire. 

Stahl  is  a  reactionary  thinker ;  State  authority  {Ob- 
rigkeit  or  Staatsgewalf},  according  to  his  view,  stands 
absolutely  opposed  to  the  idea  of  popular  sovereignty ; 
the  former  represents  the  idea  of  legitimacy,  the  latter 
the  principle  of  revolution.  Stahl  stood  in  conscious 
and  outspoken  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  in  whose  conception  the  sovereign  had  be- 
come a  mere  servant  of  the  State.  Stahl  sees  in  the 
sovereign  a  representative  of  God  ;  the  sovereign  rules 
over  his  subjects,  whose  sole  business  it  is  to  obey. 
These  are  antiquated  ideas,  to  refute  which  is  almost 
redundant  in  Anglo-Saxon  countries,  the  institutions  of 
which  are  established  upon  successful  revolutions. 
Stahl  was  a  genius  of  great  acumen  and  profound 
philosophical  insight,  yet  his  face  was  turned  back- 
wards, and  so  he  had  not  the  slightest  inkling  of  the 


4-O  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ideal  State,  which,  it  appears  to  us,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  races  to  realise. 

Stahl  is  right,  however,  in  so  far  as  he  maintains 
that  the  State  is  actually  the  realisation  of  a  moral  em- 
pire. That  is  to  say,  the  State  is,  as  the  Roman  sages 
thought,  based  upon  the  jus  naturale ;  it  is  a  natural 
product  of  evolution,  and  as  such  it  reveals  the  nature 
of  that  All-power,  which  religious  language  hails  by 
the  name  of  God. 

When  we  speak  of  God,  we  must  be  careful  in  de- 
fining what  we  mean,  for  it  may  either  be  an  empty 
phrase  or  the  cover  under  which  oppressions  mask 
their  schemes  for  usurping  the  power  of  government. 

When  we  grant  that  the  State  is  a  divine  institu- 
tion, we  mean  that  its  existence  is  based  upon  the  un- 
alterable laws  of  nature.  All  facts  are  a  revelation  of 
God  ;  they  are  parts  of  God  and  reveal  God's  nature ; 
but  the  human  soul  and  that  moral  empire  of  human 
souls  called  the  State  are  more  dignified  parts  of  God 
than  the  most  wonderful  phenomena  of  unorganised 
nature. 

It  is  customary  now  to  reject  the  idea  of  jus  natu- 
rale as  a  fiction,  to  describe  it  as  that  which  according 
to  the  pious  wishes  of  some  people  ought  to  be  law,  so 
that  it  appears  as  a  mere  anticipation  of  our  legal  ideals 
appealing  to  the  vague  ethical  notions  of  the  people. 
Law,  it  is  said,  is  nothing  primitive  or  primordial,  but 
a  secondary  product  of  our  social  evolution,  and  the 
intimation  of  a.  jus  naturale  is  a  fairy-tale  of  metaphys- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  4! 

ics,  which  must  be  regarded  as  antiquated  at  the  pres- 
ent stage  of  our  scientific  evolution.  It  is  strange, 
however,  that  those  who  take  this  view  fall  back  after 
all  upon  nature  as  the  source  of  law ;  they  derive  it 
from  the  nature  of  man,  from  the  natural  conditions 
of  society,  and  thus  reintroduce  the  same  old  doctrine 
under  new  names — only  in  less  pregnant  expressions. 
Most  of  these  criticisms  are  quite  appropriate,  for  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  an  abstract  law  behind  the  facts  of 
nature ;  no  codified  jus  naturale,  the  paragraphs  of 
which  we  have  simply  to  look  up  like  a  code  of  posi- 
tive law.  In  the  same  way  there  are  no  laws  of  nature ; 
but  we  do  not  for  that  reason  discard  the  idea  and  re- 
tain the  expression.  If  we  speak  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
we  mean  certain  universal  features  in  the  nature  of 
things,  which  can  be  codified  in  formulas.  Newton's 
formula  of  gravitation  is  not  the  power  that  makes  the 
stones  fall ;  it  only  describes  a  universal  quality  of 
mass  concisely  and  exhaustively.  In  the  same  way 
the  idea  of  a  jus  naturale  is  an  attempt  to  describe  that 
which  according  to  the  nature  of  things  has  the  fac- 
ulty of  becoming  law.  The  positive  law  is  always 
created  by  those  in  power ;  if  their  formulation  of  the 
law  is  such  as  would  suit  their  private  interests  alone, 
if  for  that  purpose  they  make  it  illogical  or  unfair  to 
other  parties,  it  will  in  the  long  run  of  events  subvert 
the  social  relations  of  that  State  and  deprive  the  ruling 
classes  of  their  power ;  in  one  word,  being  in  conflict 
with  the  nature  of  things  it  will  not  stand.  If,  how- 


42  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ever,  the  codification  of  rights  properly  adjusts  the 
spheres  of  the  various  interests  that  constitute  society, 
if  it  is  free  of  self-contradictions  and  irrational  excep- 
tions, it  will  stand  and  enhance  the  general  prosperity 
of  society.  The  former  is  in  conflict  with  the  jus  na- 
turale,  the  latter  in  agreement  with  it. 

Thus  we  are  quite  justified  in  saying  that  the  positive 
law  obtains,  while  the  natural  law  is  that  which  ought 
to  obtain  ;  the  positive  law  has  the  power,  the  natural 
law  the  authority ;  and  all  positive  law  is  valid  only  in 
so  far  as  it  agrees  with  the  natural  law ;  when  it  de- 
viates from  that,  it  becomes  an  injustice  and  is  doomed.  * 
In  a  word,  the  jus  naturale  is  the  justice  of  the  positive 
law  and  its  logic.  That  its  formulation  is  not  directly 
given  in  nature,  and  that  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend 
it  in  exact  terms,  must  not  prevent  us  from  seeing  its 
sweeping  importance.  If  there  were  no  such  constant 
features  in  the  nature  of  society  which  are  the  leading 
motives  of  all  the  historical  evolutions  of  the  positive 
law,  our  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  would  have  to 
be  regarded  as  mere  phantoms,  and  our  ideal  of  justice 
would  be  merely  a  dream. f 

*See  Jodl's  lecture  Uebtr  da*  Waen  ties  Naturrechtes,  Wien,  1893. 

t  The  problem  is  at  bottom  the  same  as  the  problem  of  reason,  of  logic, 
arithmetic,  and  all  the  formal  sciences.  There  have  been  people  who  think 
that  the  world-reason  is  a  personal  being  who  permeates  the  world  and  inserts 
part  of  his  being  into  rational  creatures.  In  opposition  to  them,  other  philos- 
ophers deny  the  existence  of  a  world-reason  and  declare  that  human  reason 
is  of  purely  subjective  origin,  an  artificial  makeshift,  a  secondary  product  of 
very  complex  conditions.  We  regard  both  parties  as  partially  right  and  par- 
tially wrong  ;  we  say  :  There  are  certain  immutable  features  in  the  relations 
of  things,  which,  in  their  various  applications,  can  be  formulated  in  logic, 
arithmetic,  geometry,  and  all  the  other  formal  sciences.  Thus,  human  reason 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  43 

There  are  wrong  conceptions  of  the  jus  naturale, 
but  there  is  also  a  right  conception  of  it.  In  the  same 
way  there  are  pagan  conceptions  of  Christianity  and 
there  is  a  purified  conception  of  it.  Stahl  did  not  see 
that  the  true  conception  of  the  jus  naturale  is  the  same 
as  the  purified  conception  of  Christianity.  For  the 
purified  conception  of  Christianity  is  monistic ;  it  re- 
gards natural  phenomena  as  the  revelations  of  God, 
and  the  voice  of  reason  as  the  afflatus  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

The  State  is  a  human  institution,  but  as  such  it  is 
as  divine  as  man's  soul ;  the  State  should  not  consist 
of  rulers  and  ruled  subjects,  but  of  free  citizens.  And 
yet  we  must  recognise  the  truth  that  the  State  is  a 
superindividual  power,  and  that  the  laws  of  the  State 
have  an  indisputable  authority  over  all  its  members. 

* 

*  * 

When  we  say  the  State  is  divine,  we  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  all  the  ordinances  of  government  are,  a  for- 
tiori, to  be  regarded  as  right.  By  no  means.  We  might 
as  well  infer  that  because  man's  soul  is  divine  all  men 
are  saints,  and  their  actions  are  eo  ipso  moral.  Oh,  no  ! 
The  State  institution,  as  such,  and  the  human  soul,  as 
such,  are  divine  ;  they  are  moral  beings  and  more  or 
less  representative  incarnations  of  God  on  earth. 

is  after  all  a  revelation  of  the  world-reason.  The  world-reason,  it  is  true,  is 
no  personal  being,  yet  does  it  exist  none  the  less  ;  being  a  feature  of  facts,  it 
possesses  an  objective  reality.  Its  formulation  is  an  abstract  concept  of  the 
human  mind,  but,  with  all  that,  it  is  not  a  mere  fiction,  a  vain  speculation,  01 
an  aberration  from  the  truth. 


44  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

The  State  is  truly,  as  Stahl  says,  a  moral  empire, 
or,  rather,  its  purpose  is  the  realisation  of  a  moral 
empire  on  earth.  The  State  is,  religiously  speaking, 
God's  instrument  to  make  man  more  human  and  hu- 
mane, to  teach  him  more  and  more  to  perfect  himself, 
and  to  actualise  the  highest  ideals  of  which  he  is  capa- 
ble. But  the  State  of  Stahl's  conception  can  beget  a 
bastard  morality  only  ;  it  represents  the  ethics  of  the 
slave,  which  consists  in  obedience  ;  it  does  not  repre- 
sent the  ethics  of  the  children  of  the  free,  which  alone 
can  develop  true  and  pure  morality. 

The  State,  in  order  to  become  a  moral  empire,  must 
recognise  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  keep  his  lib- 
erty inviolate. 

The  principle  of  individualism  arose  out  of  a  revolt 
against  the  principle  of  suppression.  The  individual- 
istic movement  is  a  holy  movement,  beginning  with 
Luther,  represented  by  Kant,  but  breaking  down  in  its 
one-sided  application  in  the  French  Revolution.  Indi- 
vidualism is  the  principle  of  the  right  to  revolution,  but 
the  right  to  revolution  is  a  religious  right ;  it  is  a  duty 
wherever  tyranny  infringes  upon  the  liberty  of  its  sub- 
jects, wherever  it  interferes  with  the  natural  aspiration 
of  citizens  for  higher  ideals,  and  wherever  it  prevents 
progress. 

The  old  governments  were  class-governments.  We 
cannot  investigate  here  the  extent  to  which  this  state 
of  things  was  a  necessary  phase  in  the  evolution  of  the 
State ;  but  we  maintain  that  the  breakdown  of  these 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  45 

forms  was  an  indispensable  condition  to  a  higher  ad- 
vance. ,.The  old  State  consists  in  the  organisation  of 
governments  with  subjects  to  be  governed,  the  new 
State  is  the  organisation  of  free  citizens  to  realise  the 
ideal  of  a  moral  community. 

The  old  State  is  based  upon  the  so-called  divine 
right  of  kings,  an  organisation  of  a  few  rulers  or  of  the 
ruling  classes.  The  new  State  must  be  the  organised 
common  will  of  the  people  ;  and  its  authority  is  the 
divinity  of  the  moral  purpose  which  this  common  will 
adopts.  The  government  should  not  do  any  ruling  or 
mastering,  the  government  should  simply  be  an  ad- 
ministration of  those  affairs  which  the  common  will, 
for  good  reasons,  regards  as  public. 

The  ideal  of  the  new  State  can  be  put  into  practice 
only  where  the  common  will  is  animated  by  a  common 
conscience ;  and  this  common  conscience  should  not 
be  a  tribal  conscience  justifying  every  act  that  would 
be  useful  to,  or  enhance  the  power  of,  this  special 
people  as  a  whole  :  the  common  conscience  must  be 
the  voice  of  justice  ;  it  must  recognise  above  the  State- 
ideal  the  supernational  ideal  of  humanity,  and  must 
never  shrink  from  acting  in  strict  accordance  with 
truth  and  the  fullest  recognition  of  truth. 

If  the  State  is  to  be  based  exclusively  upon  the 
principle  of  individualism,  the  State  will  break  down, 
but  if  the  State  is  recognised  as  an  embodiment  of  the 
moral  world-order,  it  will  adopt  the  principle  of  indi- 
vidualism as  a  fundamental  maxim,  for  without  liberty 


46  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

no  morality.     The  slave  has  no  moral  responsibility, 
the  free  man  has. 

From  these  considerations  we  regard  the  principle 
of  individualism  as  the  most  sacred  inheritance  of  the 
revolutionary  efforts  of  mankind,  which,  becoming  vic- 
torious in  Luther's  time,  still  remain  so.  We  do  not 
reject  the  truths  of  former  eras  :  on  the  contrary,  we 
prove  all  things,  and,  discriminating  between  the  evil 
and  the  good,  we  keep  that  which  is  true.  In  preserv- 
ing the  ancient  idea  that  the  State  is  founded  upon  the 
immutable  order  of  nature,  and  the  Christian  idea  that 
the  purpose  of  the  State  is  the  realisation  of  moral 
ideals,  we  avoid  the  one-sidedness  and  errors  which 
naturally  originate  when  a  man  in  controversy,  as  a 
method  of  effectually  resisting  his  adversary,  denies 
that  there  is  any  truth  at  all  in  his  opponent's  views, 
and  out  of  mere  spite  indiscriminately  opposes  all  his 
propositions. 


THE  MODERN  STATE  BASED  UPON 
REVOLUTION. 


A  MONG  the  ancients  the  State  was  a  religious  in- 
**•  stitution,  and  the  State's  authority  was  to  Greek 
citizens  not  less  ultimate  than  that  of  the  Pope  is  to 
Roman  Catholics.  Socrates  attended  to  his  duty  of 
voting  against  the  unanimous  fury  of  the  Athenian 
mob  when  the  ten  generals  after  the  victorious  battle 
of  Arginusae  were  unjustly  condemned  to  death.  But 
he  did  not  venture  to  oppose  an  unjust  law  as  soon  as 
it  had  become  law.  He  obeyed  the  law  when  it  most 
outrageously  condemned  him  to  death ;  he  might, 
with  the  connivance  of  the  authorities,  have  easily 
made  his  escape,  but  he  preferred  to  stay  and  to  die. 
Very  different  from  this  attitude  was  the  position  of 
Sophocles.  He  was  imbued  with  the  same  spirit  as  our 
Protestant  heroes,  a  Milton,  a  Luther :  he  preached 
disobedience  to  immoral  laws.  Antigone  says  : 

"  It  was  not  Zeus  who  gave  them  forth, 
Nor  Justice  dwelling  with  the  Gods  below, 
Who  traced  these  laws  for  all  the  sons  of  men ; 
Nor  did  I  deem  thy  edicts  strong  enough, 


48  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

That  thou,  a  mortal  man,  shoulds't  over-pass 

The  unwritten  laws  of  God  that  know  no  change. 

They  are  not  of  to-day  nor  yesterday, 

But  live  forever,  nor  can  man  assign 

When  first  they  sprang  to  being.    Not  through  fear 

Of  any  man's  resolve  was  I  prepared 

Before  the  gods  to  bear  the  penalty 

Of  sinning  against  these." 

Sophocles  ranks  the  unwritten  laws  of  the  morally 
right  above  the  legality  of  State-laws.  In  a  conflict 
between  the  two,  the  former  is  to  be  regarded  as  the 
superior  authority,  and  justly  so,  for  the  State's  author- 
ity rests  upon  the  moral  law,  and  it  is  the  State's  duty 
and  its  ultimate  end  of  existence  to  realise  the  moral 
law  in  establishing  a  moral  community. 

The  Saxon  nations  represent  the  revolutionary  prin- 
ciple in  history,  and  they  are  proud  of  it.  Historians 
unanimously  praise  Hampden's  resistance  to  the  pay- 
ment of  ship-money.  Hampden  became  a  martyr  of 
the  revolutionary  principle,  viz.,  the  right  to  resist  il- 
legal impositions  of  government,  and  such  resistance 
was  with  him  a  religious  duty.  The  free  England  of  to- 
day gratefully  remembers  his  services  in  the  cause  of 
freedom.  The  sinking  of  the  three  vessels  of  tea  was 
in  some  respects  a  boisterous  student's  joke,  but  it  was 
prompted  by  this  same  revolutionary  spirit  which  makes 
it  a  duty  to  resist  unjust  laws ;  and  to  fail  in  this  duty 
is  regarded  as  a  sign  of  unmanliness. 

Resistance  is  right  when  the  State-authority  comes 
into  conflict  with  moral  laws.  But  who  shall  illumine 
the  minds  of  the  people?  Who  shall  decide  whether 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  49 

their  own  views  of  right  and  wrong  are  correct  or  not? 
Even  such  a  scoundrel  as  Guiteau  while  standing  on 
the  scaffold  shouted  "Glory,  glory  Hallelujah!"  We 
can  only  say  that  every  case  must  be  considered  by  it- 
self, and  every  one  who  feels  called  upon  to  stand  forth 
as  a  champion  for  his  particular  ideal  of  right  and  jus- 
tice, must  take  the  consequences.  Mr.  Hampden  lost 
his  fortune  and  nobody  ever  replaced  it,  and  yet  we  feel 
sure  that  if  we  could  arouse  him  from  his  slumber  in  the 
grave  and  ask  him  whether  he  regretted  it,  he  would 
most  positively  uphold  his  old  conviction  ;  he  would  be 
proud  of  the  subsequent  course  of  events,  which  justi- 
fied his  action,  although  it  had  ruined  his  life,  and  he 
would  be  glad  to  know  that  the  same  spirit  that 
prompted  him  is  still  alive  in  the  Saxon  races. 

The  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  Saxon  races  pos- 
sesses one  peculiarity :  it  is  based  upon  manliness  and 
love  of  justice,  i.  e.,  upon  the  higher  morality  of  the 
unwritten  law  ;  it  is  pervaded  by  a  moral  seriousness 
and  supported  by  a  religious  enthusiasm.  And  this  is 
the  secret  why  the  English  revolution  and  the  Ameri- 
can revolution  were  successful.  They  did  not  come 
to  destroy,  but  to  remove  the  obstacles  to  building 
better  than  before. 

With  all  this  unreserved  appreciation  of  the  revo- 
lutionary principle,  we  are  by  no  means  inclined  to  say 
that  it  is  our  duty  to  resist  any  and  every  immoral  law. 
On  the  contrary,  we  should  consider  it  as  a  public  ca- 
lamity if  every  one  who  has  peculiar  and  dissenting 


50  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

views  from  our  legislative  bodies  concerning  the  moral- 
ity of  a  certain  law,  should  resort  to  open  rebellion. 

The  method  of  settling  questions  of  right  or  wrong 
by  the  majority  votes  of  legal  representatives  has,  with 
all  its  faults,  also  its  advantages.  Problems  as  to  the 
fairest  methods  of  taxation,  as  to  restrictions  for  tem- 
porary exigencies,  as  to  peace  or  war  on  a  given 
provocation,  etc.,  have  a  deep  moral  significance  and 
should  be  decided  not  according  to  private  interests  or 
party  politics,  but  solely  from  the  moral  view  of  the 
subject.  Should,  however,  a  popular  error  concerning 
their  right  solution  be  so  prevalent  as  to  make  it  pos- 
sible to  procure  for  it  a  majority  vote,  we  may,  on  the 
one  hand,  deeply  regret  the  lack  of  the  people's  in- 
sight, but  must,  on  the  other  hand,  grant  that  under 
the  circumstances  and  in  a  certain  way  it  is  good  that 
the  State  should  act  according  to  the  erroneous  notion 
popular  at  the  time  ;  for  the  people,  if  not  amenable  to 
reason  and  the  sense  of  right,  should  find  out  their 
mistake  by  experience,  so  that  the  public  mind  may  be 
educated. 

The  justice  of  the  revolutionary  principle  can  be 
doubted  only  by  those  who  regard  morality  as  a  blind 
obedience  to  authority.  We  demand  a  higher  concep- 
tion of  morality ;  we  require  that  the  truth  shall  be 
openly  investigated,  and  that  truth  itself,  not  a  repre- 
sentative of  truth,  as  a  pope,  or  a  church,  or  dogmatic 
formulas,  shall  be  the  ultimate  authority  of  conduct 
in  life. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE.  51 

This  is  the  spirit  of  the  new  dispensation,  and  this, 
too,  is  the  basis  upon  which  we  build  our  national  life. 
And  we  are  conscious  of  the  fact  that  we  stand  upon  a 
higher  moral  ground  than  those  who  praise  submis- 
siveness  to  this  or  that  authority,  which  is  regarded 
as  a  divine  institution,  and  derives  its  power  directly 
from  the  grace  of  God,  according  to  sacred  revelations 
which  are  said  to  be  infallibly  right  and  reliable,  even 
where  they  are  in  conflict  with  facts  and  where  they 
flatly  contradict  reason. 

The  revolutionary  principle  has  been  doubted  by 
some,  not  on  account  of  its  justice,  but  on  account  of 
its  alleged  impracticability.  Its  success,  however, 
among  the  Saxon  nations,  with  their  consequent  un- 
precedented and  unrivalled  advance  in  industry,  trade, 
literature,  art,  and  general  prosperity,  can  no  longer 
be  doubted.  Those  nations  alone  possess  the  future 
who  sanction  this  revolutionary  spirit,  based  upon  the 
higher  morality  of  manliness  and  freedom. 

The  modern  State-ideal  (which  is  not  an  embodi- 
ment of  individualism,  for  that  would  make  the  State 
itself  impossible,  but  which  recognises  nevertheless  the 
principle  of  individualism)  procures  for  its  members 
a  wider  liberty  and  a  fuller  justice,  thus  removing  all 
the  shackles  that  prevent  progress  or  hinder  the  free 
pursuit  of  righteous  enterprises. 

The  State  which  in  opposition  to  the  Church  came 
to  be  regarded  as  a  profane  institution,  is  now  again 
sanctified  as  a  moral  power,  having  moral  aims,  exist- 


52  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

ing  for  a  holy  purpose,  and  destined  to  realise  and  to 
help  its  citizens  to  a  life  according  to  the  highest  ideals 
of  humanity.  The  State  is  a  moral  institution,  and  it 
is  therefore  our  duty,  according  to  the  precedent  of 
Christ,  one  of  the  first  and  greatest  representatives  of 
the  revolutionary  spirit  on  earth,  to  drive  out  of  its 
halls  those  who  barter  there  for  private  gains.  The 
State  does  not  exist  to  be  a  den  of  thieves,  and  it  is 
but  right  to  cast  out  the  money-changers  and  those 
who  sell  and  buy  in  this  most  sacred  temple,  built  of 
the  souls  of  men. 


TREASON  AND  REFORM. 


nPHE  question  now  arises,  Can  there  be  in  a  State 
-*-  which  recognises  the  justice  of  the  revolutionary 
principle,  any  such  thing  as  treason?  We  answer  that 
there  is. 

Treason,  according  to  our  definition,  is  any  act 
which,  as  the  result  of  conscious  and  deliberate  pur- 
pose, tends  to  undermine  the  existence  of  the  State ; 
and  treason  is  not  merely  a  punishable  offence,  it  is 
one  of  the  gravest  crimes  that  can  be  committed. 

In*  giving  this  definition,  however,  it  must  be  added 
that  the  name  "traitor"  has  been  flung  at  every  revo- 
lutionist, at  every  advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  op- 
pressed, and  at  every  reformer.  Not  every  revolution 
is  treason.  Those  revolutions  which  stand  upon  moral 
grounds,  being,  as  it  were,  an  appeal  to  the  unwritten 
laws  of  our  highest  ideals,  are  aspirations  for  reform  ; 
they  are  attempts  to  replace  any  traditional  law,  which, 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  more  humanitarian  justice, 
is  felt  to  be  unjust.  Treason  is  that  kind  of  revolution 
which  comes  to  destroy,  which  is  not  based  upon  moral 


54  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  STATE. 

motives  and  does  not  bring  to  the  front  a  higher  moral 
conception. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  draw  any  well-defined  line  be- 
tween treason  and  reform,  especially  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  every  reform  appears  necessarily  as 
treason  to  a  conservative  mind.  As  to  would-be  re- 
formers, who  commit  acts  of  treason  in  the  vain  hope 
of  doing  a  good  work  of  progress,  we  can  only  say  that 
they  take  their  chances.  If  a  man  is  not  positively  sure 
that  his  resistance  to  the  law  is  a  true  act  of  reform, 
or  a  better  and  juster  arrangement  of  society,  he  had 
better  leave  the  work  to  other  men ;  and  even  those 
men  who  feel  quite  sure  that  they  are  called  upon  to 
become  reformers  should  carefully  question  their  own 
sentiments,  lest  their  vanity  inveigle  them  to  enter 
upon  a  thorny  path,  which  to  them  appears  as  one  of 
martyrdom,  but  in  fact  is  only  the  error  of  an  empty 
dream.  Both  will  suffer  equally,  the  reformer  and  the 
vainglorious  prophet  of  error,  but  the  former  only  will 
live  as  the  martyr  of  a  great  cause ;  the  latter  will 
perish  without  even  being  respected  or  even  so  much 
as  pitied  by  following  generations. 


INDEX. 


Administration,  23-24. 

Alice  Lisle,  iii. 

Allegorical  figures,  i. 

Anarchists,  iii,  v,  vi. 

Animals,  horde  of,  15. 

Antigone,  47. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  27. 

Art,  x. 

Art  to  teach  truth,  a. 

Artificial  ?  Is  the  State,  14-15. 

Artificially  established  States,  22. 

Byron,  Lord,  iv,  vii. 

Changes,  everything  subject  to,  10-11. 

Cicero,  27. 

Clemency,  vi,  vii. 

Common  conscience  and  common 

will,  45. 

Common  will,  15-16,  30-31,  32,  38. 
Common  will,  common  conscience 

and,  45. 
Competition  and  happiness,  12. 

Dante,  27. 

Definition  of  State,  15.    ' 
Dynamiters,  vii. 

Figures,  allegorical,  i. 
Frederick  the  Great,  28. 
Function  of  want,  19. 

God,  17,  40,  42. 
Grotius,  27 
Guiteau,  v,  49. 

Hampden,  48,  49. 

Happiness,  competition  and,  12. 


Hen-and-egg  problem,  7-9. 
Hobbes,  27. 
Homestead,  iii,  iv. 
Horde  of  animals,  15. 
Humanity,  man  and,  9-10. 

Individual,  the,  and  society,  7-9. 
Individualism,  vi,  3,  31,  44. 
Individualism  and  societism,  n. 
Individualism,  the  principle  of,  33, 46. 
Instincts,  social,  21,  22. 
Is  the  State  artificial,  14-15. 

Jodi,  42. 

Jus  natural?,  40,  41,  42,  43. 

Kant,  25. 

Lessing,  25. 
Lisle,  Alice,  iii. 
Locke,  27. 
Louis  XIV.,  28. 
Lowell,  iv,  vi. 
Luther,  25. 

Majorities.  35. 
Majorities,  Republic  in,  33. 
Man  and  humanity,  9-10. 
Milton,  iv,  34. 
Montesquieu,  27. 

Nationality,  does  it  exist  ?  3-5. 

Objects  of  the  State,  18. 
Organs  of  Society,  n. 

Plato,  27. 

Positive  rights  of  States,  26. 


THE    NATURE    OF   THE    STATE. 


Principles  of  individualism,  the,  46. 
Puffendorf,  27. 

Reality,  supermaterial,  n. 

Reason  the  world-reason,  42. 

Reform,  treason  and,  53,  54. 

Relation-realities,  5. 

Republics  in  majorities,  33. 

Revolution,  44. 

Revolutionary  principle,  48,  49,  50, 51, 

53- 
Rights  of  the  State  according  to  Kant, 

25- 
Rousseau,  20,  25,  27,  30. 

Social  contract,  the  State  a,  20. 

Social  instincts,  21,  22. 

Societism,  and  individualism,  11-12. 

Society  and  the  individual,  7-9. 

Society,  organs  of,  n. 

Socrates,  47. 

Sophocles,  47,  48. 

Spencer,  31,  32. 

Stahl,  27,  38,  39,  44- 


State,  v,  14,  16,  17,  18. 

State  artificial  ?  is  the,  14-15. 

State,  definition  of,  15. 

State,  objects  of  the,  18. 

State,  right  of,  according  to  Kant,  25. 

State,  superindividual,  3,  4. 

State,  the,  a  social  contract,  20. 

State  the  moral  world-order,  45. 

State,  unconscious  growth  of  the,  20. 

States,  artificially  established,  22. 

States,  positive  rights  of,  26. 

Strike,  vii. 

Superindividual  State,  3,  4. 

Supermaterial  reality,  n. 

Treason,  iii,  v,  vii. 
Treason  and  reform,  53,  24. 
Trumbull,  Gen.  M.  M.,  iii,  iv,  v. 
Truth  taught  by  art,  2. 

Unconscious  growth  of  the  State,  20. 

Want,  function  of,  19. 
World-order,  State  the  moral  45. 


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